Chapter 87: Two People Looking at Each Other Guiltily
On an ordinary Friday evening in late March, Hermione Granger finally finished reading the last page of her massive book, Domestic Life and Social Habits of Muggles in England.
She sighed contentedly, closed the book, leaned against the back of the sofa in front of the window in the common room, tilted her head, and looked at the layers of rosy clouds outside the window caused by the setting sun.
The weather was gradually warming up, and with it the atmosphere in the Gryffindor common room. George and Fred were juggling Butterbeer bottles, which drew cheers from the crowd. They also handed out flyers to the onlookers, promoting the latest products from Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes.
She closed her eyes and repeatedly turned over the introduction to Muggle electricity in the bulky book in her mind, thinking for the eighteen hundredth time what room for improvement she could make in her thesis.
At this moment, she heard Angelina Johnson, the Chaser for the Gryffindor Quidditch team, excitedly asking Fred, "Can you mail order your Wonder Witches products anonymously?"
"Of course, anything is available. From spit lozenges to love potions, we can mail order them all," Fred said with a grin. "You can also just tell me what you want. Look, I have some samples with me. If you're interested, I can give them to you to try first."
"I want to see it too!" Ginny Weasley's somewhat excited voice came from halfway, abruptly interrupting her brother's sales plan.
"This isn't something a girl your age should be watching!" George's voice drifted closer, and it seemed to land on the sofa next to Hermione along with the struggling Ginny's voice.
She opened her eyes to find George placing a bag of Honeydukes peppermint toad candies on his sister's lap. "Have some candy, Ginny. Just sit here for a minute. We can't sell any of that to our sister, or Percy will tell Mum, and she'll come and kill us. Oh, hi, Hermione, how are you? Still scared of those Dementors?"
"Oh, of course not." Hermione smiled and said lightly, "I can already conjure up an otter!"
"Yes, we saw it that day. It's a pity that we didn't bring our wands that day, otherwise we could have turned into a magpie. Thanks to someone's private teaching, right?" George was beaming, winked at her, and walked back to the crowd.
Ginny grumbled bitterly, feeling unhappy about being "treated specially" by her brothers. She frowned, unwillingly watching George push their products among the crowd again. Then she turned to look at Hermione, her eyes suddenly rolling, her tone brightening again, "Hermione! You must have been to their shop, right? You brought me some pygmy puffs from there last time..."
"Oh, are they all right?" Hermione asked cheerfully.
"They couldn't be better, they are so energetic." Ginny smiled. "The pygmy puffs in the next dormitory are always listless. They all say it's because they didn't choose the right ones when they bought them. How did you choose them? You are really good. I used to think that only children from wizarding families would understand species like puffs and pygmy puffs -"
"Oh, I asked for a little help from others." Hermione said vaguely, her face slightly flushed.
"Who?" Ginny asked curiously. "It certainly wasn't Ron. He's not interested in this stuff."
"No," Hermione said lightly.
"It's not Harry either?" Ginny asked doubtfully.
"No. Not him," Hermione said quickly.
"Fred, or George?" Ginny said. "It had to be them. They were the ones who asked you to bring it back in the first place."
Hermione shook her head, a smile forming on the corner of her mouth. "Don't guess, you can't guess it."
"Okay." Ginny shrugged, gave up her aimless speculation, and turned the topic back to the direction she was more interested in. "Hermione, tell me quickly, what products do they have in the store? Especially those in the 'Wonderful Witches' series!"
"Oh, there's an interesting patented product called the 'Daydream Spell'. Just recite a spell and you can enter a high-quality, extremely realistic 30-minute daydream. However, they don't sell it to teenagers under the age of sixteen," Hermione recalled.
"Oh, what a shame. What else? Love potion? I heard Fred yelling over there. He never told me about these kinds of products in private." Ginny said with interest, "Do you remember what my mother said the first morning of school, about how she made her own love potion when she was young? She said she couldn't forget the smell. I really want to get some and smell it."
"Yes, they do," said Hermione. "They have the finest love potions, and I see lots of senior girls buying them."
"Have you ever tried smelling the love potion? What does it smell like?" Ginny moved closer to her and found a ginger cat lying on the other side of Hermione's body, looking at her with its eyes open.
"I've smelled it once before - it smells amazing," Hermione whispered, her face flushed with a pink aftertaste, just like the sky at that moment.
"You're so lucky. The girls in our dorm have decided to crowdfund to buy a bottle. You know, we're just curious about what we can smell." Ginny said eagerly, staring at George and Fred as they excitedly distributed flyers in the crowd. "But I'm afraid they won't sell it to me. I have to find a way to get a flyer and do an anonymous mail order or something."
"Yeah." Hermione was daydreaming, stroking Crookshanks' fur from time to time.
"Or, Hermione, can you buy us a bottle next time you go?" Ginny leaned her face over, shook her arm, and said in a flattering tone, "Just one bottle, okay?"
"Okay." Hermione was trying to recall the smells, and was casually perfunctory to the little girl who was trying to get close to her. The next second, she came to her senses and looked at Ginny's joyful look in surprise. "What?!"
She pointed at her nose and asked in shock and panic, "You want me to buy it?!"
"That's right!"
"Can I refuse?" she asked with a bitter face.
"No!" Ginny said cheerfully, "You've already agreed! Don't go back on your word!"
When Draco peered out of his attic window at Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes on Saturday afternoon, Hogsmeade was already overflowing with people.
He glanced at the lonely Screaming Shack in the wasteland not far away, and the faint candlelight in the house, and a hint of doubt appeared in his mind.
What? Is it true that the Hogwarts ghosts say that there are a bunch of rough guys living there?
A qualified Slytherin never meddles in other people's affairs. Adhering to this basic principle, he decided to retract his gaze and land his wandering thoughts on the gravity-filled real life.
This attic, which served as Draco's private office, had been decorated by Dobby. Many sophisticated spatial extension spells, combined with the functional area planning approved by Draco, transformed it into a living room, bedroom, bathroom and kitchen.
The living room is quite spacious.
A candle burned eternally above the white fireplace, and the black leather sofas were enough to make anyone reclining on them sigh in delight at how comfortable and spacious they were. The coffee table and side tables were spotless, and several armchairs sat obediently.
The entire wall is covered with bookshelves, and there is an antique desk by the window.
There were piles of correspondence on the desk: several letters from the Ministry of Magic's Funny Product Patents Office, annual public administration fee payment notices from the Hogsmeade Village Office, accounts of the renovation costs of the Wizarding Wheezes compiled by Dobby, property brochures from Muggle real estate agents - from London, Liverpool, Manchester, Bristol and Holyhead - and stock and currency investment advice from Muggle investment managers.
In the corner of the living room stood a large black and gold cabinet, the Vanishing Cabinet that Dobby had bought anonymously from Borgin and Burke's.
It took some effort, but it was worth it, Draco thought.
The rest of the place was unremarkable. The bedroom was not as big as the living room and only had a carved four-poster bed and a quaint wardrobe. The bathroom and kitchen were clean.
Draco turned around, feeling quite satisfied. He felt he had a good reason to raise Dobby's salary to five Galleons a week. And Dobby, as usual, would probably look embarrassed because he couldn't refuse, then burst into tears of joy, and finally awkwardly accept this unchangeable reality.
House-elves! What a difficult creature to understand!
He couldn't help but smile, took out a silver key and locked the attic door. After casting a few silent spells on the door with the tip of his wand, he walked down a hidden staircase with familiarity.
Fred, dressed in magenta robes, was arranging some bottles and jars on the wall shelves. He heard Draco coming down the stairs and turned to give him a grin.
"You're right, we should have hired a clerk a long time ago. To be honest, we do need to spend some time preparing for the OWLs exams. If we don't get any certificates, Mom might--" At this point, Fred, who was usually fearless, shuddered rarely.
"What? Can we make you into specimens and hang them on the wall?" Draco asked casually, glancing at the animal specimens on the wall.
"That's a new idea. I'll have to try it on Percy sometime." Fred's eyes lit up with mischief. "I was thinking that Mum would have Percy sing to us all day - in the same voice he uses in the shower."
"Speaking of which, it seems your brother has been confiscating Magic Wheezes products at school," Draco said nonchalantly, picking up a new defensive product that was being modified and taking a look. "Can't we find a way to 'convince' him?"
"Oh, he's never had much of a sense of humor—it must have been something he was born with—but ever since he became Head Boy, he's become more prone to making a fuss." Fred shook his head. "But it doesn't matter. We sent a lot of samples to his girlfriend. He probably doesn't have time for us now."
"What sample?" Draco was slightly surprised, his eyes showing curiosity. "So it works?"
"Oh, you know, amazing—" Fred's eyes flashed maliciously.
"Mr. Weasley!" As they were talking, the young shop assistant named Verity with short blond hair poked her head in from behind the curtain. Draco saw that she was wearing the same magenta shop robes as the Weasley twins. She said seriously, "Mr. Weasley asked me to tell you that a customer wants to laugh at the cauldron."
"Okay, Verity, I'll be right there." He winked at Draco, grinned wickedly, picked up a thick cardboard box, and walked downstairs.
Draco shook his head, thinking there must be something interesting about those samples. He quietly followed Fred down and heard Harry complaining to Ron.
"I suspect Snape cast a locating spell on me! I'm going crazy! No matter where I go, he can find me and follow me around!" Harry said desperately.
He glanced gloomily across the street through the window of the Wizarding Wheezes. Draco followed his gaze and vaguely spotted a corner of Professor Snape's iconic black robe.
"Harry, there's no spell like that—" Ron said impatiently, fiddling with a fake wand on the shelf, examining the label.
"Yes, there is," Draco walked over and said slowly, "but it's not used like this -"
He paused, his wandering eyes looking at Hermione not far away.
She was standing by the witches' favorite pink shelf, holding something in her hand with an almost obsessed expression on her face.
On that slender finger was a silver ring that he had cast a positioning spell on.
She seemed to feel his gaze. At this moment, she suddenly turned around and looked at him, meeting his gaze with a satisfied smile on her face.
Draco felt a little guilty. He smiled back at her softly and swallowed.
He'd never used that locating spell. Never.
But whenever he thought about this, he felt extremely guilty.
It was strange that a Slytherin who was known for his unscrupulous ways would feel guilty about such a small spell.
He even felt like the big ginger cat named Crookshanks, sneaking into the Forbidden Forest uncontrollably, trembling with fear of being discovered by her, and afraid of her wrath when she found out the truth.
She wasn't going to like this locating spell.
She never liked being bossed around.
Draco was a little troubled. He had thought about taking the damn ring back and canceling the locating spell.
But he never found the right moment.
She seemed to like the ring so much that she always wore it tightly on her hand.
This love should have made him feel comforted, but now it made him feel a little troubled.
He stared deeply into her smile - she looked so happy now.
He didn't want to break this happiness. He didn't want to imagine her anger.
Never mind, let's not mention it and just don't use it. Draco sighed inwardly and temporarily drove the matter out of his mind.
So he stood beside Ron and pretended to listen attentively as he told him about Neville Longbottom's misfortunes.
"He was so confused! He said he dropped his wand in the hall and spent most of the night looking for it!" Ronza picked up another fake wand and examined it carefully, saying with interest, "Guess what? He found it at the kitchen door below the hall... We all suspected he dropped it when he went to steal something to eat... But he insisted he had never been there..."
Draco smiled and nodded perfunctorily.
Ron was quite surprised by the smile and nod.
How rare! Draco, a Slytherin who usually has no patience, was actually interested in listening to his gossip today.
This unusually cooperative audience fueled Ron's desire to share. He said happily, "And then, guess what? He lost his wand again! This time, he swore he'd never been to the Potions classroom, but the wand was right behind the door! Who else would go to a place like that, except for him being punished by detention by Snape? He's still dazed and refuses to admit it. I don't know what he's been thinking about all day long... He's such a headache. He can't remember anything. He even has to write down the password to the common room on a piece of paper, as if he's been under a forgetfulness spell..."
Draco smiled and patted Ron's shoulder, but his eyes continued to look at Hermione through the gaps between the people coming and going. She seemed particularly flustered at the moment and was twisting a small bottle.
Is she okay? What is she panicking about?
He listened absentmindedly to Ron's chatter in the background, his thoughts drifting away from the crowd.
Hermione Granger once again stood in front of the shelf labeled "High-end Love Potion," ready to secretly buy a bottle for her whimsical Ginny. Standing in front of the pile of shiny little bottles, she couldn't resist her curiosity and unscrewed one of the bottles, intending to smell it again.
Although she had smelled it once at Mr. Slughorn's, the memory was a little vague.
Ginny and her friends were not the only ones interested in a potion with a special meaning, such as the love potion. Her roommates Lavender and Parvati also frequently mentioned it in the girls' dormitory night talks, accompanied by earth-shaking laughter.
Any young girl would be curious about this thing and would smell it again and again.
She is no exception.
The moment the bottle was opened, a scent so enticing it made her dizzy came back to her face amidst the rising spiral of steam:
Freshly mowed lawn, new parchment paper, and that all-too-familiar faint smell of watermelon…
Yes, that's it.
Exactly the same smell she had smelled in Mr. Slughorn's cauldron.
A great feeling of satisfaction came over her, and she breathed slowly, her soul soaring into the air, wrapped in pleasure.
The smell was both wonderful and familiar. So familiar that she felt like she had smelled it somewhere not long ago. She smiled lazily, her mind accurately capturing the fragment of that happy memory.
It was in the library, waking up in the afternoon. The smell of freshly mowed lawn drifted in from the window, the scent of new parchment on the table, and the robe I wore had a faint scent of watermelon—a refreshing and intoxicating smell.
What happened to that robe?
Oh, yes. She rubbed her sleepy eyes, looked at the robe over and over again, and finally found the DM embroidered on the inside - Draco Malfoy - Draco Malfoy.
She later returned the robe to the boy.
Draco.
Oh, there he is. She turned her head and caught sight of him at a glance.
His platinum-blond hair hung loosely between his brows, beneath which lay a pair of bright gray eyes—which were staring deeply at her through the crowd.
The black shirt made his cheeks and neck look even whiter. She was sure that if she smelled it closely, it would smell like a refreshing and intoxicating watermelon.
She indulged in the pleasant smell and thought contentedly.
The taste of watermelon...
The taste of watermelon???
Hermione's eyes widened, her heart pounding as the description of the love potion flashed through her mind: Everyone smells it differently, it's related to what attracts us... You can even smell the scent of someone you like.
The satisfied and peaceful smile on her face had not yet completely disappeared, but her mind had already exploded.
lightning.
Thunder.
earthquake.
A dazzling light flashed on the cerebral cortex, so bright that it stung the brain.
For a long time, those strange, confusing emotions that troubled her, those great joys, painful palpitations...
They were like surging waves, whistling sharply, hitting the shallows in her heart, washing out a jaw-dropping trace - love.
She likes him.
I like you so much that just making eye contact with you feels like being struck by lightning.
She loved him so much that she couldn't even look him in the eye for too long. Such a dazzling man. He smiled at her. Those eyes, cold as ice to others, were as gentle as the water of a lake to her, yet they had the power to burn her heart.
She loved him so much that she numbed herself to the point of studying like crazy. Only by wandering in the sea of books she loved could she temporarily forget him. She forgot his eyes, his scent, and the fact that he only smiled at her.
She needed to forget too many things - because he constantly gave her so much heart-beating:
He helped her. He taught her how to fly the terrifying broomstick. He took her on the unruly Muggle skateboard. He carried for her a stack of books that he himself was too impatient to carry. He answered her questions, shared learning resources she couldn't access, and explained to her the unfamiliar rules of the wizarding world.
He comforted her. Under the oak tree by the Black Lake, on the bench in the garden, at the seat in the library, in his embrace. He always took out his handkerchief and gently wiped her tears, trying his best to tell some clumsy Slytherin jokes to make her laugh.
He protected her. Filch's pursuit, the vanishing staircase, the ugly troll. He stood before her in the face of the Dementors. Even when things got awkward, he saved her from the wild girls in her house. He knocked the red hat and the cabbages away from her during Defence Against the Dark Arts practicals. He swung his staff to crush the snowballs, as if they were a formidable threat.
He praised her. He always told her she was smart. He acknowledged her talent. His eyes always revealed his undisguised admiration for her. God knows how much that look meant to a girl as determined as she was. And he never called her a Mudblood.
He found her. He soothed her nerves about her first Hogwarts visit and taught her how to face the Sorting Hat. He opened his private seat for her and thoughtfully offered her a cup of hot tea. He saved her from petrification, poured the only antidote into her mouth, and fed her chocolate. He coldly stopped the rude boy and let her enter the Great Hall first.
He led her along. The muddy road to Hogwarts. The potholed road to Hogsmeade. The treacherous, invisible path out of the Slytherin common room. The path through the bewildering corridors on a rose-scented night. The path through the snow on a chilly, wind-swept evening.
He stroked her hair. It had once been to save a strand from falling into onion soup, but it became a regular occurrence. He touched the top of her head in the aisle of the train. He tied her hair up in Potions class. He gently helped her untie the decorations from her birthday hat. At night in the Great Hall, he stroked her hair to soothe her to sleep. He frailly lay on the hospital bed, acting like a spoiled child, his hand still firmly holding her hair.
He held her hand tightly. He grabbed her hand as he fled the dangerous women's bathroom. He held her hand, his arm around her as he stirred the potion. He walked hand in hand with her in the rose-scented night. He accepted her sleepy hand under the night sky of the Great Hall. He returned her hand in class in the Forbidden Forest, intertwining their fingers.
His touch was bewildering. He grasped her chin, searching her eyes. He pressed his forehead against hers, testing her warmth. He brushed the lingering snow from her hair and wiped the foam from her lips. He suddenly pulled her into his arms amidst the snow. They embraced each other in the surging crowd. He held her tightly in the hospital bed, mumbling in a half-asleep state, unwilling to let her go.
He smiled at her, a smile, a small smile, a wide smile. He smiled only at her. Those captivating grey eyes seemed to smile only at her, if she hadn't imagined it.
At first, it was just a weak flutter of wings in her heart.
However, however, the wings as thin as a cicada's wings actually waved out a hurricane that filled the heart.
In the hurricane, complicated memories come flooding in, and the crisscrossing likes are as dense as a spider web.
Those memories are just the tip of the iceberg among the countless fragments that touched her heart.
They flashed through her mind frame by frame like movie films, appearing one after another and lasting for a long time.
She turned her head to look at the pair of gray, calm eyes, and randomly picked out a frame from the pile of films.
That was the first time he had taken her high up in the sky on his broomstick—that was the first time she had smelled that delicious watermelon scent on him.
Had she smelled it so early in the morning?
What does that mean?
The panic deep in her soul instantly shattered her soul, and she was extremely confused.
This won't work, it really won't work.
She should be rational and not be swept away by such surging emotions.
Reason told her that she didn't know what kind of feelings he had for her.
Yes, he showed a certain tenderness towards her. He was willing to wrap his scarf around her neck in the cold wind, wasn't he? He was willing to tuck her cold hands into his warm pockets to warm them, wasn't he? He was willing to pull out her chair in every class and welcome her as his study partner, wasn't he?
At least he didn't hate her.
But sometimes, he appeared too calm.
The most important evidence was that he had clearly given her a meaningful kiss on the forehead in the morning sun.
Then, he acted as if the kiss had never happened and continued to treat her calmly.
Just like study partners as always.
Why didn't he panic and blush like her? Why did he always look calm and composed?
Is it because these things were just casual actions for him, rather than special care for her alone?
Suspicion grew, and she was afraid to seek the truth, and even more afraid of the heartbreaking ending she might encounter.
The brave lion of Gryffindor, after meeting someone he likes, can only become a coward who is worried about gains and losses.
He called him a coward, so how could she be any better than him?
She couldn't think any further. Hermione twisted the cap of the vial tightly and, with a stiff hand, put it back on the shelf, as if she had just discovered a siren in the vial.
She felt extremely guilty and looked back at him again, hoping that he didn't notice her panic, afraid that he would discover her most secret thoughts.
But he still looked at her. He looked at her through the crowd, a careless smile on his lips, and looked at her stubbornly.
She couldn't breathe.
She wanted to escape.
But she was locked in place by his gaze.
She had no way to escape.
Then, that feeling of palpitations came again.
Just like Salvador Dali's "The Persistence of Memory", her heart felt sore and numb, turning into a melting wall clock, with the hour hand, minute hand and second hand suspended in place, frozen at the moment when she saw him.
Then, her heart slowly, slowly began to fall, an irreversible descent. She knew that her heart would eventually slide into an abyss with no bottom in sight. But there was no way to stop this descent.
She likes him.
I like him passionately, ardently and irrationally.
On this ordinary Saturday afternoon at the end of March, Hermione Granger, through the bustling crowd, made eye contact with Draco Malfoy and finally understood his feelings completely.