Disclaimer: I don't own them, so don't sue me. The only things I own are a British flag, a
computer, and a kitten.

Sometimes Hate Is a Good Thing

by Hermione-G-Weasley
 
 

Chapter 1
How I Hate Thee
 

Draco Malfoy sat in the Slytherin common room looking down at the piece of parchment in
front of him. He had been working on his History of Magic homework for the past hour and
a half, and he still hadn't gotten past the first sentence of his essay. He really didn't give a
damn about the first Minister of Magic, and he couldn't force himself to think that it was an
important enough topic to spend all this time writing a stupid essay about. It was his downfall
really. He had no motivation for his studies.

His father, of course, made sure he got decent grades, though. Still, Draco hardly thought that
fear was an equivalent to motivation. The only reason he made the good marks that he did was
the fact that he had faced his father's wrath one too many times in his life and was in no hurry
to receive it due to his grades. So, he studied and did his work well enough to try and please
his father.

Of course, it still wasn't good enough. He still wasn't the top of his class.

There was always that damn Mudblood Granger.

"Stupid bitch," he muttered out loud. He looked around as soon as he said this to make sure
no one had heard him speaking to himself. No one had; all the other Slytherins were engaged
in their own conversations and studies. He quickly looked back down at his parchment and
made a mental note to not talk to himself in public anymore.

But damn her. Damn her for being better than he was! Why couldn't she just be stupid in
something? Why couldn't he just get a better grade than her in just one subject? She even
beat him in Potions, the one class he was truly interested in excelling in. Yes, damn her.

Draco remembered the summer he had spent at home after his first year at Hogwarts.
His father had received his marks and called him downstairs to the library. Getting called
to Lucius' library was never a good thing in the Malfoy house. Draco had known this for
as long as he could remember, and he wasn't exactly in any sort of a hurry to see what
his father wanted to discuss with him. When he had entered the library and heard that the
"meeting" was about his grades, Draco had been confused. He knew that his grades were
good, and he was positive that his exam scores had been satisfactory.

Satisfactory maybe, but not the best. "A Mudblood?!" his father had raged. "A Gryffindor
Mudblood is better than you?" He had given Draco the same look that Draco had grown to
fear years before.

Of course, his father hadn't been impressed when Draco had assured him that he had the
second highest scores in their year. He had been even less impressed when Draco had tried
to blame Granger's higher rank on the teachers' favoritism.

"Do you think I give a bleeding damn about who those idiots they call teachers favor?!" He
had grabbed Draco's collar and yanked him forward violently. "You are a Malfoy, damnit!
You are supposed to be the best no matter what!"

Draco remembered being shocked beyond belief when his father had let go of his collar and
merely shoved him away, warning him that his grades had better be the best in the next year.
He remembered being shocked that he hadn't been punished, but he had left Lucius' library
quickly without question.

Of course, the next year was no different than the last. The Mudblood bitch had still beaten
him, despite the fact that she had spent a great part of the year in the hospital wing getting over
some sort of sickness she had acquired during the Christmas holiday and another good part
of the year completely petrified. And his father hadn't been as generous that summer, either.
Draco still had a scar on his lower arm from the glass of the vase his father had hurled at him
when the grades had arrived.

The other summers hadn't been any better. Draco was now in his seventh and final year,
and he was beginning to realize that any hopes of beating Granger were now completely
nonexistent. He simply didn't even care anymore.

God, he hated her.

He hated everything about her.

He hated the fact that she was so damn smart. He hated the fact that the professors all fell
for her goody-goody, ass kissing act. He hated the fact that she was such a brilliant witch
despite the fact that the blood in her veins was that of two Muggle dentists. He hated the
fact that she was permanently attached at the hip to Potter and Weasley. He hated the fact
that she had enough courage to be a Gryffindor, but also had enough brains to be a
Ravenclaw, enough loyalty to be a Hufflepuff, and even, in many ways, enough ambition to
be a Slytherin. He hated the fact that she could strut around the school and, along with her
two low-life best friends, break every single rule Hogwarts had ever recorded and still get
the title of bloody Head Girl.

He hated everything about her.

And yet he was completely and utterly obsessed with her.

Maybe that was what he hated the most.

He had been looking at her differently for awhile now. He supposed it had been since the
Yule Ball in their fourth year. How dare she show up looking... well... so beautiful! Who the
hell did she think she was? She wasn't pretty; she was... she was Granger! Buck-toothed,
bushy-haired, scrawny little Granger!

But she had changed through the years.

She was no longer buck-toothed (Draco only had himself to blame for this, he realized).
Her hair had somehow changed from bushy to merely wavy with a few curls here and there
to make her seem all the more endearing. And was she ever not scrawny anymore! It had
happened before their sixth year; she had come back to school a good three inches taller,
and although she was still slender, she now had curves that could rival those of Pansy
Parkison, the one and only Slytherin slut.

But still- she was Granger. And he hated her.

Oh, how he hated her. He wanted to bed her, yes, but he hated her.

It wasn't as though he liked her or anything. It was definitely a physical thing. Yes, he
wanted to fuck her brains out. But he still most definitely despised her. He wanted to get her
alone, give her the best fuck she would ever get, laugh at her, drop her, and never speak to
her again.

It was the perfect plan.

There was only one problem. It would never happen.

Get her alone? Ha! As if the little bitch would ever be caught dead without the other two
members of the Dream Team. Potter, Weasley, and Granger were never separated. Draco
often wondered if one of them was even capable of taking a shit without the other two. He
would never be able to get her alone.

And then there was another problem, too.

Weasley.

Draco was not short and skinny like Potter was, but he was still nonetheless quite a bit
smaller than Weasley. He wasn't stupid. He knew Weasley could kick his ass, and that
was precisely the reason he hadn't taken up any of the offers to fight that Weasley had
given him since their first year. Sure, there was always Crabbe and Goyle who would
save him if worst came to worst, but he really was in no hurry to get beaten up by anyone
at school- he got enough of that at home. And Weasley was so painfully obviously in love
with the little bitch that Draco knew he wouldn't hesitate to turn his face into a punching
bag at the slightest notion that Draco might want to do something more with Granger than
antagonize her. Of course, Granger herself was completely oblivious to the feelings that
the entire school knew Weasley held toward her, but that was beside the point. Weasley
could and would beat the shit out of him.

So, what to do now? Draco had been wondering that very question for over a year now-
ever since his first fantasy involving Granger had made its way into his mind during a Potions
exam. He still cursed her for daring to invade her thoughts during that test. He hadn't even
finished it, much less made a decent score on it. But she had been chewing on the end of
her quill thoughtfully and twirling one of those damn curls through her fingers so endearingly.
And what had happened? Draco suddenly realized that she had invaded his thoughts and
was now chewing on something quite different from a feather quill. Damn her. Damn her.

And that was only the beginning. He couldn't count the number of times he had found himself
undressing her mentally while he stared at her laughing and joking with those bastards she
called friends during the evening meal. He couldn't count the number of times he had awaken
from a dream involving nothing but her, him, a wand, and an empty Transfiguration classroom.

Oh, he hated her for this.

And what was he going to do about it? It wasn't as though he could slip her a note during
Potions and say, "Hey Mudblood, meet me in the Transfiguration classroom tonight after
midnight. Don't wear anything under your robes. And, oh yeah, bring your wand." The
thought was absolutely preposterous.

He would just have to ignore these sexual urges. He had more important things to worry
about anyway. The N.E.W.T. exams were coming up, and he knew that it was imperative
that he do well and impress his father. He had to think of what he was going to do after
graduation. And right now, he had to think about the damn History of Magic essay sitting
unfinished in front of him.

He did not have time to be thinking of some Mudblood bitch.

Hermione Granger pulled on the Hogwarts uniform she had gotten so used to over the past
seven years. The navy blue skirt she had once found so girly and annoying had actually become
a part of her. And she liked it for other reasons, too. She couldn't remember exactly when she
had started thinking about her sexuality, but she supposed it had been somewhere during her
fifth year and heightened sometime during that summer. She smiled briefly remembering the first
time she had ever though about her uniform as a way to get boys to like her. It had been during
the summer, of course, and she had been watching the television in her bedroom. As a Muggle-
born witch, she liked to think she got the best of both worlds. Anyway, an American pop-music
video had been on, and the girl in the video had been wearing a school uniform seemingly very
similar to her own Hogwarts one, though with quite a few differences. The white button up shirt
had been tied to reveal most of the girl's stomach, and the skirt had been hemmed so that it
barely covered the girl's ass much less reached her knees as the Hogwarts skirts did. Hermione
remembered thinking that if Parvati and Lavender hadn't been purebloods and had any access
to American pop culture that they would have taken a page out of this girl's book and hiked
their own skirts up.

But it had been Hermione who had tried it first.

What did she really have to lose honestly? There was no rule that said the skirts had to be
so... well... nun-like. That's just the way they were made. There was nothing that said the
skirts couldn't be hemmed an inch or two or few. So, she had done it.

She had taken her sewing kit out and put to use the needle and thread skills her mum had
taught her when she was a little girl. Her conservative schoolgirl kilt was five inches shorter
when she was finished. And she had been quite pleased when she had tried it on in front
of her bathroom mirror. She had even tied the shirt up just to see how it would look, though
she knew she would never be able to get away with baring her stomach like that. She looked
sexy, and she knew it. When she had first realized it, she had blushed a bit embarrassedly,
but she had soon grown to appreciate her sexiness. That summer she had gone through a lot
of changes, and her newfound womanly body was something she quickly learned how to use.
Pushup bras, blouses that ran a size smaller than she normally would have worn, and shoes
that escalated her height, making her legs look longer were things she had grown very fond
of that summer.

When she had returned to school the next year with her new body and her new skirts, she
turned more heads than she would have thought possible. Boys who had once ignored her
were suddenly trailing her constantly. She liked the way their eyes went directly to her well-
exposed thighs while they sat in class. She liked the way they started asking her out. She
liked the way that Ron and Harry now had no choice but to notice that she was a female.
She liked the way Parvati and Lavender threw her jealous looks whenever they were near.
She liked the way that those same two girls, along with most of the other girls fourth year
and up, started hemming their own skirts up, but were not getting the same reaction from
the male population that she was.

She liked it all.

She liked it all very much.

As she hurried down the steps of her dormitory to the Gryffindor common room, she
searched her mind frantically to make sure she had everything she would need for the day.
Although she had changed physically over the years, she was still the bookish perfectionist
she had always been, and she did not want to go to any of her classes unprepared.

Ron and Harry were waiting for her as they always were, and she grinned as she heard
them immediately start to complain that she had kept them waiting. It was a morning ritual.
And she liked it.

"Hermione, we're barely going to have time to eat!" said Ron exasperatedly as he got up
to exit the common room.

Hermione rolled her eyes. "There is still an hour before Potions. And since when are you
in such a hurry to get to Snape's class anyway?"

Ron glared in her direction, angry because she was right about the whole hour before
classes. "Oh, shut up." It was a childish answer, but it was the best he could come up with.

Hermione rolled her eyes once again. Sometimes she wondered how she had managed to
end up best friends with these two people. Neither of them was anywhere near her intellect
ability, so basically if she ever wanted to have a rational, mature, adult conversation she
was just out of luck.

When they reached the Great Hall, they took their places at the Gryffindor table and started
eating. Hermione was the pickiest of the three, hardly touching anything if there was excess
grease on it or too much sugar in it. Ron, on the other hand, would eat anything anyone set
in front of him. In fact, the more grease the better. And more sugar? Can you say Heaven?
Harry was somewhere in the middle of them. He couldn't put away as much food as Ron by
any means, but he could definitely beat Hermione.

They sat eating their food along with the rest of the school. Ron told his stupid jokes, and
Harry and Hermione both laughed at them. They talked about the coming week's Quidditch
match against Hufflepuff. They, as always, enjoyed themselves.

However, Hermione had looked up in just enough time to catch Draco Malfoy staring at
them. Well, actually, more just at her. She glared at him and held his stare until he finally
looked back down at his plate.

She hated him so much. God, if she could, she would beat the shit out of him every time
he got within punching distance of her. However, she was not Ron. She was, well, a girl,
and she was much smaller than Malfoy anyway. And besides, she was Head Girl. She did
not go around punching people. Even if they did deserve it.

And he did deserve it.

For seven years, he had made her life hell, and Hermione despised him more than she did
any other person on earth. She wished that someone would just beat the living hell out of
him and get it over with. Oh, she hated him.

But he was so damn sexy.

Hermione had stopped denying herself this realization the year before. She had finally come
to terms with the fact that, yes, Draco Malfoy was indeed very good-looking. Of course, she
dared not admit this verbally because she was nearly the furthest from stupid that you could
possibly get. She could just imagine the looks on Ron's and Harry's face if she were to one
day say, "Yes, I've decided that Draco Malfoy looks like a sex god." Ha! She wouldn't have
to worry about getting a mature and intellectual conversation ever again because she would
never get any sort of a conversation from them if she told them this.

And besides, it wasn't worth it because she had no other feelings for Malfoy besides those
of sexual desire. She still hated him. She still wanted to watch someone knock the shit out
of him.

She just wanted to sleep with him.

Just once, you know, and get it out of her system.

She might have been Head Girl, and she might have been the smartest girl in the school, but
she was still nonetheless a seventeen year old. Everyone regarded her as though she were as
pure and innocent as the bloody Virgin Mary, but she wasn't that innocent. True, she was a
virgin, but her thoughts were constantly racked with thoughts of sex and guys.

One guy in particular. Yes, Draco fucking Malfoy.

And she hated this. She hated the fact that he could find his way into her fantastical dreams
at night and do things to her in those dreams that she was sure no one else could. She hated
the way she often found herself gazing at him during Potions and losing her concentration as
she pictured the way he would look just coming out of the shower. She hated everything
about him.

And yet, she was completely obsessed with these thoughts she kept having of him.

She was sick of the goody-goody act. She wanted to change her image, just so that she
would not always be thought of as a bookish prude. She was ready to lose her virginity;
she had know this for awhile.

But what was she supposed to do about it? She couldn't bloody well ask Harry to help
her out with that. She actually shuddered at the thought. And Ron? Yes, he was rather
handsome and was probably much better in bed than Harry could ever hope to be. But
still, he was Ron. No, she was not asking either of them.

Yes, there were plenty of guys who tailed her these days and asked her out, but they
were all so boring. She doubted whether they would be much fun at all. And anyway,
much as she tried to deny it, she knew who she wanted.

Malfoy.

There were several problems with this, though. For one, she hated him. She absolutely
despised him. Wasn't your first time supposed to be with someone you cared about? Two,
Ron and Harry would kill him. Yes, she had no doubts about that. Well, Ron would kill
him anyway; Harry would stand back and watch. Three, though her reputation would be
changed at least, it might actually be ruined. She wasn't sure if she wanted that. And four,
it would never happen.

Draco Malfoy would never look at her the way she looked at him. And the thought that he
might sleep with her was as ludicrous as thoughts came. He wouldn't even touch her for fear
of getting tainted by her blood. No, Draco Malfoy would die before he would ever sleep with
a Mudblood. Especially before he would sleep with Harry Potter's Mudblood best friend.

So what the hell was she going to do about these damn thoughts?

God, she hated him.
 
 
 

Chapter 2