"Merlin's beard! What are you doing here?" Draco, turning around, nearly had a heart attack—if wizards could have heart attacks.
"This is my problem! Why are you here?" Hermione crossed her arms, her face serious, as if she had caught him red-handed. She raised her chin and asked, "Where does this room lead? I have never seen it before."
"Can we leave first?" Draco cautiously glanced around. Luckily, no one else was passing by.
"No. Unless you can explain all of this," Hermione said firmly.
Moonlight streamed through the window, illuminating them, and her eyes, under the combined effect of the night and the moonlight, shimmered with a captivating brown hue. Draco suddenly realised that this colour was somewhat similar to the tip of his wand.
"If I said I just happened to be here, would you let me go?" he asked hopelessly, trying to force a smile at her.
He did not want to involve her in danger... The more you knew about Horcruxes, the more dangerous it became.
As it turned out, Hermione was not exactly an easy person to talk to.
"I do not believe a word you say! Sneaking out when everyone is celebrating..." She ignored Draco's pleas and instead narrowed her eyes at him dangerously. "I know you are up to something! I remember we once discussed the issue of honesty between friends, Draco Malfoy!"
She called him by his full name—Draco could tell the little girl was angry.
Hermione Granger was furious. She had been watching his every move all evening. She had witnessed that flash of platinum gold through the Great Hall entrance, forcing her to abandon the celebrating crowd and follow him from a distance.
She did not even know if doing this would violate school rules! Yet, she slipped out with him without batting an eye. She had to admit, she was not thinking clearly tonight.
She impulsively followed him and noticed that he seemed preoccupied.
She deliberately kept her distance and slowed her pace, like an overly curious and nimble cat, following closely behind the boy.
To avoid arousing his suspicion, she kept a certain distance behind him, unaware of all his actions. She only knew that he had first gone to Ravenclaw Tower and then hurried to this corridor on the eighth floor.
Nothing could be stranger! What was a Slytherin doing in these places?
Even more surprisingly, in the blink of an eye, he vanished without a trace in the corridor, near the tapestry where the troll beats Barnabas the Barmy.
She paced back and forth down the corridor, utterly baffled as to why she had lost him. He clearly had no other way to go; even if he wanted to sneak back to the Great Hall, he would inevitably run into her face-to-face.
However, he was nowhere to be found, as if he had evaporated on the spot by the moonlight scattered all over the ground. Just when she was dejected and ready to give up halfway, he suddenly appeared behind a strange door that seemed to have just grown out of the wall.
"I had heard you liked to hang around the Ravenclaw Tower for a while, but I did not believe it at first." Hermione suddenly remembered some gossip her roommate Lavender Brown had told her—through Parvati Patil's twin sister Padma Patil in Ravenclaw—and she finally decided to believe them this time: "All right, open the door, I know she is in there!"
"Who?" Draco asked, completely bewildered.
She? The Grey Lady seems to have been gone for quite some time now.
"Your girlfriend. I wager you two were having a secret rendezvous in there, were you not?" Hermione said sternly, her heart filled with displeasure. "I really do not know what is so shameful about this."
Draco was shocked by her irresponsible judgement. It was utterly ridiculous! When did he get a girlfriend? How come he did not know? Did young girls all have such vivid imaginations?
"You think I have a Ravenclaw girlfriend?" He was practically fuming. Who was this bored person spreading such rumours?
"Is that not right? That friend you asked on that list last time—a mutual friend of yours and Luna's—is probably your girlfriend, right? I know she is a girl; Luna referred to her as 'she'!" she pressed, staring intently at him as if to confirm whether he was just giving her a perfunctory answer.
"Of course not!" Draco was utterly exasperated. He looked at her, both amused and exasperated, wishing he could open her head and see what kind of wormwood was inside.
"No? Then what is it?" she asked angrily, wondering to herself where her anger was coming from.
Under the moonlight, the platinum-blonde boy and the brown-haired girl stared at each other, their conversation at an impasse.
As they looked at each other in bewilderment, Hermione suddenly noticed out of the corner of her eye that the strange door was gradually disappearing from the wall. The wall returned to its pristine state, as if it had never existed.
"What happened?" Hermione forgot her argument with Draco and lunged at the wall, touching it, but found nothing. "Where is the door?" she screamed, hardly believing her eyes.
"Of course it will disappear! This is the Room of Requirement!" Perhaps because Hermione's silly student-like question was somewhat amusing, Draco's weariness and depression were somewhat alleviated by her interruption.
He could not help but reveal a hint of smugness, and started talking: "You have to walk back and forth in front of the wall three times, thinking about where you want to go—oh right, how about thinking of a date room, and see if there are any Ravenclaw girls in there!"
Hermione pouted, half-believing, and paced back and forth in front of the wall three times. He had not lied to her after all—the smooth door was once again faintly visible on the wall.
Draco chuckled inwardly; this naive young girl had been fooled by him after all. He was certain that when they went in again, it would not be that storage room. He calmly opened the door for her. "Please come in."
Hermione looked at his gentlemanly demeanour and suddenly felt a little breathless. She tried her best to remain calm as she walked through the door, not wanting him to see her guilty conscience.
As Draco had predicted, the interior of the Room of Requirement had been completely transformed.
The clutter vanished without a trace. Before them lay stacks of shelves, neatly arranged rare books, and antique study tables, the air thick with the mixed smell of old pages and new parchment—a typical library setup.
"This place is amazing! It is exactly as I imagined!" Hermione exclaimed excitedly as she looked around.
"So, you think the library is a good place for a date?" Draco looked around with interest.
"This..." Hermione was speechless.
—She seemed to have inadvertently revealed some of her secret fantasies about dating to a boy... This was not a good sign.
Draco saw her dilemma and did not press the matter. He simply said with a strange expression, "Anyway, first look around and see if my girlfriend is here."
It would be a miracle if she could find it, that silly, know-it-all girl!
Hermione looked around to make sure there was no one else there besides the two of them.
"It seems not," she said guiltily in the silence.
"Are you sure? Are you sure you are not?" His lips twitched, and he was suddenly amused by her guilty look.
"I think I might have made a mistake." Hermione lowered her head sheepishly, but a secret sense of smugness welled up inside her. "You know, sometimes people just jump to conclusions..."
"I thought you would be more rational about gossip and rumours." Draco suppressed the urge to burst out laughing, turned to look at the bookshelf, and hid his almost out-of-control expression.
If I laugh out loud now, she will most likely be furious.
His fingers casually glided over the spines of a row of ancient books on the bookshelf, finally pulling out a book titled The Guide to Rare Potions. The owner of those hands found a comfortable spot on the sofa in the centre of the room and sat down, then said to Hermione, "Why do you not sit down? Are you not tired of standing all the time?"
Hermione silently complied. She sat on the sofa beside him, staring blankly at the fireplace in front of her.
She was caught off guard.
—Why did things turn out this way? She originally wanted to find out some secret of his...
But now, they were at her ideal date spot, sitting together and killing time?
Then, she felt a little embarrassed, and slightly pleased.
Things are getting increasingly bizarre.
"Are you hungry?" Draco noticed her unease and spoke up.
"No. I am full," she said dryly. The dinner had been too lavish; she had not digested it yet. Although, she did not pay attention to what she had eaten—she was too busy looking at him.
"Then let us have some tea." Draco tapped the table with his wand, and a large, steaming teapot and two cups appeared out of thin air. For once, he was not really in the mood to brew his own tea—his attention was already occupied by many other things.
The tea's colour was different from usual. Hermione took a sip curiously, a look of surprise on her face. "This is—hawthorn tea?"
"Yes. It aids digestion and cuts through the greasiness." Draco took a sip, a faint smile playing on his lips. "My mother likes to try some herbal teas. I have learnt to make some myself."
"It is fine." Hermione took another sip. She had so many questions in her mind, and she wanted to ask him properly. But for a moment, she did not know which question to ask first.
"Why did you refuse the Special Award for Services to the School?" She had already heard Harry and Ron's account of what happened in the Chamber of Secrets—he was fully deserving of the award.
This was the second time Draco had been asked this question tonight. He was about to repeat the same excuse he had given Harry and Ron before, but she seemed to have seen through him: "Draco, I am not stupid. If you are going to try to fob me off, you might as well just tell me straight up that you cannot answer; it is not the first or second time this has happened."
Last year in the Forbidden Forest, she kept a similar secret for him. He was always like this, liking to hide behind others, do good deeds, and then act as if it was none of his business.
He was the strangest boy she had ever met.
"Then, I am sorry, I cannot answer," the peculiar boy said bluntly.
Her understanding nature saved him trouble. In fact, Draco did not like being given the runaround either. He preferred to be straightforward rather than be treated like a fool. In this respect, the two were surprisingly similar.
Hermione paused, not angry, but changed the subject: "Why have I never heard of the Room of Requirement before?"
That is one I can answer. With an apology for not being able to answer the previous question, Draco spoke a little more than usual: "This is a secret room at Hogwarts, known to only a select few. The Room of Requirement only appears when someone truly needs it. When it does appear, it is always arranged precisely to meet the needs of the person seeking help. The user needs to concentrate on the desired location and walk past that wall three times; then a door will appear in the wall."
Hermione's eyes were filled with wonder. She looked around the place again and could not help but sigh with amazement.
Draco admired her vivid expressions for a moment, then looked down at the book in his hand, hiding a sly smile at the corner of his mouth. "All right, now you know what I have been up to. Nothing much, just exploring the various secret rooms of Hogwarts."
"And what is with you sneaking off to the Ravenclaw Tower every day? Your female friend—" she asked defiantly, clearly still quite bothered by the matter.
"I have a little connection with the Grey Lady, the ghost of Ravenclaw," Draco said, half-jokingly, turning a page of his book. "You might have seen her tonight. She brought me to the Room of Requirement."
Hermione's mouth dropped open in disbelief. She had indeed seen the Grey Lady. However, from her perspective, the Grey Lady seemed to have only exchanged a few words with Draco before shyly drifting away.
She had never considered this possibility: that Draco's mysterious Ravenclaw female friend might be a ghost.
"Now you know how outrageous your guess is?" Draco muttered, holding up the book to hide the slight upturn of his lips.
"Ah, it is her... I am sorry, I think I misunderstood you." She suddenly wanted to find a crack in the ground to crawl into; her anger had vanished without a trace.
Draco tilted the book to the side, revealing his eyes, and looked at her in surprise.
Miss Know-It-All's apology... came completely out of the blue.
When the fluffy-haired Hermione Granger looked at you apologetically with her bright, round eyes, you could only find her adorable and find it hard to actually be angry with her.
Draco simply could not get angry.
She looked so vibrant right now, much better than when she was Petrified. Even when she was angry, she was adorable, let alone when she apologised.
He felt only relief. Relief that she had not been hurt.
Moreover, he himself was not entirely honest with her.
"Never mind that. Anyway, why did you notice me leaving?" Draco decided to lighten the mood with a new topic. "I thought I slipped away pretty well. Everyone was busy celebrating."
He was quite concerned about this. Did many people see him leave?
Otherwise, how would she have noticed? She had only recently recovered from Petrification. Why was she staring at the Great Hall entrance instead of enjoying the vibrant life and lively celebrations?
Yes, Why?