Inverse

Winter

"I could say the same," he narrowed his eyes. "Unless the rumors were true and you really do live in the library. I'm surely not surprised."

Hermione rolled her eyes. "I only just got here. And you didn't answer my question."

"And I'm not planning to," he curtly replied. "Now go sit somewhere else, you're in my place."

She raised an eyebrow, trying to sound surprised. "You were sitting here?" Hermione held up the two other books he left behind. "Then are these yours?"

There was a flash of panic in his eyes, but he masked it very quickly. She knew she would have missed it if she weren't waiting for it; he was good, she inwardly smirked, but not good enough.

"No," he denied, inching the book in his hand behind his back. "They were already there. I'm not going to put them back because some lousy kid didn't want to."

Hermione bit the inside of her cheek to hold back her smile. She didn't know why, but Malfoy in denial was rather funny to watch. Especially when she knew he was lying.

But she realized after a few moments that she had failed—Malfoy reverted back to his cold expression instead of opening up the reason why he was reading muggle books. Something went wrong. Maybe he really wasn't looking for her. It was a fat chance after all. It dawned on her a second later that she had possibly appeared in the wrong place. By walking to his table and catching him red-handed with muggle study books, she had cornered him.

Setting the book down, she inwardly slapped herself. Damn, she should have simply sat elsewhere. Malfoy was probably killing his pride to pick these books up in the first place, and having her find them in his usual seat was not the way to go.

"Oh," she finally said, feeling incredibly angry with herself. "Well... then why are you still at school? Term is over."

Malfoy hesitantly walked over to the table and sat down at the other end, setting the book in his lap away from view. He scowled at her, as if he didn't want to be there.

"Yule Ball," he reminded, and then smirked. "Though I doubt you thought of that, seeing as no one asked you."

Her thoughts trailed to Viktor again and she lightly smiled. "What makes you think that?"

Malfoy barked a humorless laugh. "That's not even a good joke, Granger."

"It's not a joke," she said, her face turning serious. "I was asked."

His eyes lit up in recognition. "Oh that's right, I heard Longbottom asked you, but you rejected him. Rather cruel, no?"

"I was asked before that! And I said yes if you couldn't figure that out." she hissed, losing control of her already beaten temper. "And since when do you care if Neville is subjugated to cruelty? You don't understand anything."

Malfoy's eyes hardened. "You're delusional. I'm sure only Longbottom asked a mudblood because he has no brains."

"How very clever of you, Malfoy," she spoke through her teeth. Hermione slammed her hand on the table and rose from her seat.

Damn it all! I messed up.

She turned sharply on her heel and walked away. Malfoy yelled some obscenity after her but she continued her strides, determined not to ruin the rest of her efforts. She could have easily told him off by saying she saw him in the muggle section, but that would have killed everything she had ever built with Malfoy—which wasn't much—but it was clear he was treating her a bit differently when they were alone in the library, compared to when they met in the hallways with his goons.