Transi de Froid

by Incitata
 
 

Chapter 2
Les Liaisons Dangereuses
 

"So strong is the charm of a trustworthy friend"
Choderlos de Laclos
Les Liaisons Dangereuses. 1782
 

"What happened to you last night?" asked a sulky Ron as Hermione sat down for breakfast. His
elbows rested on a crumb strewn copy of the Daily Prophet which lay open on the table. A witch
on page seven scowled as a large dollop of marmalade plopped down onto her head.

"Good morning to you too!" Hermione glanced at the headlines through the crook of Ron’s arm.
Now was not the time to talk about last night. "Any news in that?"

Ron leaned back and shook the crumbs from the page, raising the paper so that only his forehead
and a mop of red hair was visible over the top. He began to read.

"Hogwarts Horror! Last night top student Hermione Granger disappeared from Hogwarts School
of Witchcraft and Wizardry. ‘We’re all baffled’ remarked her date Ron Weasley. ‘She was here one
minute and gone the next. We …"

"Very funny Ron!" Hermione snatched the paper from his grasp and stuffed it onto an empty chair.
Ron was tight lipped and a tinge of pink coloured his cheeks.

"You think?" he said. "’Cause I didn’t."

"It’s too early in the morning for this." Hermione seized her knife and began to attack a piece of toast.

"Where were you?"

"Maybe if I’d transfigured myself into a bludger you’d have known where I was."

"What’s your point Hermione?"

"Quidditch Ron. Quidditch, Quidditch, Quidditch."

He continued to look blank.

"I was bored, I went for a walk. End of story."

"You trying to butter that or butcher it?" asked Harry taking a seat opposite. He helped himself to
bacon and eggs.

Hermione slapped her knife on the table and glared at the mutilated slice of toast. "I’m not hungry!"

"Did you hear about last night?" Harry continued. "Malfoy had a row with his date right in the middle
of the hall."

"So?" snapped Hermione. She felt her cheeks growing warmer.

"Couldn’t’ve happened to a nicer person." Muttered Ron. "Serves the git right. Where’d you go Harry?"

"Ron has been appointed chief keeper of our whereabouts Harry. He’ll sulk if you don’t tell him." sniped
Hermione before Harry could reply.

"Me and Cho went to the Muggle funfair," grinned Harry. "The Dursleys never took me to one. Great fun.
What about you two?"

"She was sulking because she’s no good at quidditch."

"Grow up Ron! You were so absorbed in your own little Weasley world that you wouldn’t have noticed
if I’d cartwheeled naked round the hall."

"Well there’s an image." remarked Harry. "Bad night then?"

"YES!" said Ron and Hermione in unison.

Not all bad
 

~0~

Hermione was glad that neither Harry nor Ron took Arithmancy. She settled down at her desk and
nibbled on the end of her quill. She needed some time alone to think, failing that she would lose herself
in her favourite subject.

"As common though the Golden ratio is in nature it is only in the last … " Professor Vectors rich voice
began.

Hermione drummed her fingers on the desk. She saw the moonlight, heard a voice, soft and compelling.
The air was cold but that added a certain piquancy to the occasion. She saw her friends all talking
about quidditch, she stood there how long? Then Blaise, then Malfoy. A goblet brimming with
pumpkin juice. Back in the library Blaise and Padma gossiping. Then the moonlight, his voice.

"Of course Muggle researchers are also aware of the Ratio but their understanding of its true significance
is several hundred years behind our own. Pacioli a Muggle mathematician in his Divina Proportione
explains how ‘this proportion of ours cannot ever be designated through intelligible numbers, nor
can it be expressed through any rational quantity, but always remains occult and secret, and is
called irrational by the mathematicians.’ Our success has been to understand the …"

No, no, no! Hermione found herself longing for the class to be over. For once she couldn’t concentrate
on her work. How much longer? fifteen minutes, ten … "Are you with us Miss Granger?" Hermione jumped.
Her knee banged into the underside of her desk. The jolt knocked her quill to the floor. "I’m sorry Professor
Vector." "Perhaps you could take us through the five attributes of the Golden Ratio identified by Pacioli?"
The professor suggested with a smile. Hermione bent down to retrieve her quill feeling the eyes of the class
upon her. Attributes? What attributes? "I’m sorry Professor," she admitted in a very small voice. "I didn’t
write them down."
 

~0~

Hermione didn’t feel like eating. Ron and Harry would be there and she couldn’t face them yet. She didn’t
know what she was going to do and it was only so long before the rumours started. Rumours, that is what
made her think in the first place, think that there might be something more to Draco. She smiled inwardly
knowing that there was something more … but she had to tell them, before they heard from elsewhere she
owed that to her friends. First tell Draco … tell him what? That it was a mistake? That she’s sorry? Hermione
could already picture Ron’s face, hear his words, nothing would make him understand. Why had she had to
be so weak.

As she reached the bottom of the stairs she turned and headed not for the great hall but for the doors.
Lunch?

Well, lunch is for people who are hungry at midday.

Hermione paused leaning against the sturdy door. It creaked as it adjusted to her weight. She looked out
onto the lawn. A dusting of snow in the early hours had covered the lawn in pristine white covering any signs
that a party had happened last night. But it was not just the snow, it was the magic. The odd thing about
magic Hermione observed was that it happened and then it was gone. The effects were immediate, no mess.
There was a lot of good in that.

And so much potential for bad her conscience added.

Tired of watching her warm breath battle against the chill air Hermione allowed the door to swing shut.
She dumped her bag by the boot scraper and plodded down the steps.

The walk across the lawn seemed longer than the night before. She glanced at the spindly trees in sharp
relief against the horizon. Last night the sky had been soft and black, a cloak to hide in, now it had the
hard look of lead. Hermione hurried not wanting any of the teachers to rush out and ask why she wasn’t
at lunch, it wouldn’t do for a prefect to be caught out of bounds, not with the house championship so
closely tied (Ravenclaw/Gryffindor – no room for convenient Slytherin animosities). Soon she was
beneath the trees, her passing marked only a single trail of footprints in the shallow snow.

The clearing with its wall of brambles and view of the lake was deserted but a statue of a lady garbed
in a flowing gown and tall pointed hat looked out over the lake. She appeared to be talking to a robin
perched on the tip of one finger. Hermione remembered vaguely the sleeping figure from the previous
night and surmised that this must be the occupant of the plinth.

"Good afternoon." said Hermione. "Do you mind if …?"

The statue turned her head to look down at Hermione. The Gryffindor prefect marvelled at the way her
hair moved, it was fluid like lava. The statue smiled.

"Be welcome my dear." The robin turned its head and examined the newcomer with beady eyes before
darting away. "‘Tis a chill morn to be abroad.."

"Yes … very cold." Hermione sat down at the base of the plinth and drew her robes around her. After
a few minutes she wished she had gone to the tower first to get her cloak. As the cold began to turn her
fingers blue she wished she had gone to the tower and stayed there. Large white flakes of snow began
to land on her black school robes.

The statue of the lady lifted the hem of her gown and with a stately gait stepped down from her plinth.
Her movement sounded like gravel. Hermione looked up at her.

"Methinks I have known you anon."

"I’m sorry. I don’t think so." replied Hermione glancing round to read the plaque on the base of the plinth.

Lady Isabella Murgatroyd
Hufflepuff and Benefactor
1468-1554

The statue coughed and swept an elegantly carved hand across her forehead. A contrived aspect of
confusion. "I did stir within my sleep and happen upon a lady and her paramour escaped into the forest …"

Hermione looked up into the blank white eyes of the statue. Now in her sixth year at Hogwarts she
knew that the pictures moved, that the suits of armour walked, even the gargoyles giggled but until
now she’d never thought about the statues dotted around the gardens.

"… and with the blessing of the moon did plight their troth. Now that lady is returned. Another tryst
perchance?"

Hermione felt rather uncomfortable, not because she was talking to the statue of a woman who according
to Hogwarts: A History had donated oodles of Galleons to Hogwarts centuries ago, not because she had
no idea what to say to a statue that sounded like a bad rendition of an Arthurian legend, but because she
had hoped that she might see him here.

"Oh, last night." Hermione flushed. She hadn’t realised that anyone was there. "I’m sorry – er – Lady
Murgatroyd – I –"

"How now fair maid." Lady Murgatroyd said lightly patting Hermione's arm with a cold hand. "Think not
that I misunderstand. The way to love is strewn with trials, requiring all a maidens wiles. Bestow thy favours
amongst thine suitors as thee will but guard well thy heart until a worthy Knight dost it win."

Hermione opened her mouth to reply but Lady Murgatroyd interrupted.

"Look yonder, the White Knight approaches."

Lady Murgatroyd raised her arm and pointed to the path. Through the leafless trees Hermione could see a
robed figure, pale head bowed, moving quickly. By the time she turned back Lady Murgatroyd had returned
to her plinth and stood rigid gazing out over the lake.

He had almost reached her by the time he looked up.

"Draco." From his look she could tell that he hadn’t expected her to be here. He stood there, pale as ever.
Cold had never seemed to affect Malfoy that way. Not even quidditch in winter put colour in his cheeks.
But Hermione suspected that he was angry about something.

"Hermione." He nodded in greeting. "I didn’t know you’d be here. I’ll leave."

"Stay if you want, makes no difference to me." He must have seen my bag, followed my tracks.

Draco squinted raising a hand to keep the swirling snow out of his eyes.

"I didn’t see you at breakfast."

"I didn’t stay long. Ron and Harry they …" Hermione paused. She’d already given quite enough away to
their enemy.

"Have you been to lunch?"

"I have to go to the library before Care of Magical Creatures." Hermione pushed herself to her feet. "It’s
too cold out here anyway. I’ll see you round."

She headed toward the path and brushed past Draco. "Wait" he said stopping her with a hand on her
shoulder.

"So that I can freeze and you can stand around glowering at me?" Hermione brushed his hand away.
"I don’t think so!"

"So I can apologise…for last night…should never have happened."

"Nice Draco, very nice. Pretend it never happened. Can’t let your little friends know you associate
with Muggle borns can we?"

"It’s not like that … let me explain."

"Don’t worry. Your sordid little secret is save with me Malfoy. Besides I wouldn’t want anyone to
know I’d been with you!"

"Will you listen for just one minute."

"I’ve listened long enough. Forget it. There is absolutely nothing you can say to me that will …"

He kissed her then. Hermione pulled away reaching for her bag and her wand but her bag was on
the steps of the school. "What did you do that for?" she snapped. "If you touch me again I’ll hex you
to Hawaii and back!"

"I could disarm you in a second Hermione. Wand or no wand." This close she was very aware of him.
Years of quidditch training had given him a fit lean body and a certain agility and reflexes that seemed
unique to seekers. Harry had the same qualities but Hermione had never felt threatened by Harry. "Do
me one favour," he requested in a politicians voice. "Let me explain."

"No Draco. No explanations. Not from you. I don’t want to know. But you do me a favour and listen
to mine. I don’t love you Draco, I never will, last night … Last night was a mistake it was as much my
fault as yours."

"Was it?" he asked cryptically.

"Yes." She replied emphatically. "Yes it was. It will not happen again. Please leave me alone. I’m sure
you’ll not find that too difficult. Tomorrow is the last day of term"

Hermione turned to go but Draco caught her sleeve.

"Listen, Hermione …"
 

~0~

Double Divination. Ron had no idea what hell was like but he suspected that if it wasn’t raging fires it
would look something like the chintzy parlour of Madame Trelawny complete with patterned scarves
and cloying incense.

Lunchtime at last! Like two tortured souls given a reprieve and a free ticket to heaven he and Harry
slipped down the ladder.

"What happened with you and Hermione?" asked Harry once they were clear of Lavender and Parvati.

Ron shrugged and stuffed his hands into his pockets. "I dunno. She just went off in a huff. I didn’t do
anything." He didn’t feel able to say what was really worrying him, it was just too outrageous to
contemplate … but the rumours. Ron resorted to man’s age old explanation for the peculiar behaviour
of women. "I reckon it must be her time of the month."

"Yeah right Ron. There’s no truth in it you know."

"Ginny turns into a total psycho every four weeks." Ron tried to ignore what Harry was getting at.
" … and Mum …"

"In the rumours. Hermione wouldn’t give Malfoy the time of day. Anyway she went to the dance with
you. She’s your friend, he’s a toe-rag who’d say anything just to annoy you."

"Where did she go?" Ron whined. He didn’t want to have to admit that Hermione had good reason to
be annoyed with him but Harry wouldn’t let go.

"You were talking about quidditch Ron. I was there. Bet you anything she got fed up and went to the
library, go and talk to her."

"Take her side why don’t you!" Ron sighed, already resigned to admitting it was his fault.
 

~0~

Hermione wasn’t in the great hall. None of the other Gryffindors had seen her so Ron grabbed a slice
of steak and kidney pie and went in search of her. She wasn’t in the library, the Fat Lady hadn’t seen
her since she had left the tower earlier that morning. He was about to give up and go back to lunch when
the picture of a singing nun on the great staircase told him that she had seen her go out into the grounds.

Ron smiled to himself as he heaved open the huge door. Harry was right. He was just being stubborn.
Hermione had more sense than to go along with any of Malfoys games. He shivered as an icy breeze
whipped around his ankles. There was Hermione's bag capped with new fallen snow.

Two sets of footprints were visible, both crossing the snow covered lawn. The first were now almost
covered but the second larger set were more recent. Both pairs of feet had gone the same way. Ron
followed the footprints, his own feet crunching on the fresh snow. As he reached the trees he brushed
the snowflakes from his hair. There were no prints here but there was only one way down the narrow
path. Ron heard voices.

"Please leave me alone. I’m sure you’ll not find that too difficult. Tomorrow is the last day of term."
Hermione's voice.

Through the trees he saw Malfoy grab Hermione's arm. She looked ready to burst into tears.
"Bastard!" Ron snarled "Bullying piece of …"

"Listen, Hermione …"

"Get your slimy hands off her Malfoy!" Ron yelled bursting through the shrubbery.

Malfoy stepped back tossing Hermione's hand aside as though it was soiled.

"Gladly."

Ron shoved Malfoy away from her. "Pick on someone your own size." He was quite ready to beat
him to a pulp.

"Well, you’d have to fight a lamppost wouldn’t you!" Malfoy retorted. "Here’s your little hero Granger."
He swept past Ron and sniggered as he sauntered toward the school without a backward glance.

"Hermione." Ron said. His heart was pounding. "Are you okay? I –"

"I can handle Malfoy myself Ron!" Hermione raged. "He doesn’t scare me. Let me deal with my own
problems. I’m sick of you people interfering. Just leave me alone."

Ron gaped as Hermione stormed down the path.

"Just what is your problem?" he muttered. He stared down at her footprints and followed them to the
path. What good would following her do? Ron didn’t really want to be yelled at again. When did
everything become so complicated?

Ron turned back and leaned against the plinth. He stared mesmerised by falling snowflakes white
against grey against white against grey until a sound like a slab of marble being dragged over gravel
brought him round.

Ron could have sworn that he heard the words. "Ah, the Red Knight."
 
 
 

In Part Three: Strange Allies, when the bonds of friendship strain Hermione discovers what it is
like to be alone and seeks refuge with another outcast.

Information regarding the Golden Ratio came from a fascinating website I discovered which looks
at the use of this particular ratio in architecture, art and music. Article by: J J O'Connor and E F Robertson

http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/history/HistTopics/Golden_ratio.html

Disclaimer: Harry Potter and related characters are and remain the property of J K Rowling,
Bloomsbury or Scholastic Books. Harry Potter characters, names and related indicia are trademarks
of Warner Brothers © 2000/2001. No infringement of copyright is intended by this fic.
 

Back to Chapter 1
Chapter 3