Draco looked away from her with an unsettling sensation fluttering in his gut, and his grey-ice stare went back to the strange item in his grip. He inspected the images one last time before he tossed it over to her and licked his teeth thoughtfully, clasping his hands together.
"So, you're scared of the wind, and a measly bee can kill you," he reiterated in his husky voice. "I thought you Gryffindors were supposed to be indestructible, or does that annoying trait only apply to that scarred prick you hang around with?"
"I'm human," she whispered quietly, meeting his sullen stare purposefully. "I have flaws, just like everyone else."
Draco frowned and snapped out of his unwelcome thoughts. "Whatever," he growled. "Anyway, I want green bedding and some new shower stuff. That cheap shit you use is starting to grate away my skin."
"Don't get my hopes up," she mumbled sarcastically, earning her a sharp glare as she scribbled down his requests. "Anything else?"
"A few boxes of Bertie Bott's beans," he replied. "And some Toothflossing Stringmints."
"Nothing else for your room?"
"I doubt there's anything in Hogsmeade that could make that room any less tragic," he muttered cynically. "The bedding will do."
"Fine. Anything else?"
The Slytherin prince paused and cocked his head with consideration. "If Tomes and Scrolls has anything new, get me something to read. Your Muggle shit is starting to give a migraine."
She narrowed her eyes. "I thought you said it wasn't that bad-
"I'd rather read some decent Wizard literature," he scowled at her. "That book you told me to read is just fucking bizarre."
"You're reading the Martin Luther King book?" she asked, her fawny eyes wide with interest. "What do you think of it?"
"I assumed that you would have told me to read it in some futile effort to brainwash me into liking Muggles," he hissed with distaste, regurgitating the words with a venomous look. "But your stupid little plan backfired because all it did was prove how fucking disgusting Muggles really are."
It took everything she had not lunge across the table and slap him. "Okay," she breathed with obvious strain. "Why do you say that?"
"Because according to that book, Muggles enslaved black Muggles and treated them like shit," he spat, apparently very angry at the notion. "Unless I have misinterpreted the book?"
"No," Hermione sighed. "That's right."
Draco sneered at her. It was a preposterous and alien concept that had instantly grasped his disgusted attention, and something that he had never even considered an issue within any society. Discrimination against skin colour was unheard of in Wizarding history, and the thought just made his despise Muggles that little bit more. Blaise, possible the only one of his friends who he respected, was dark-skinned, and the idea that he would have been mistreated because of the tone of his skin infuriated him, and simply concreted how barbaric and inferior Muggles were.
"Fucking morons," he grumbled, curling back his lip as he watched her. "And you defend this scum?"
The witch inhaled another calming breath and decided she would have to chose her words very carefully if she wanted this to work in her favour. "It was a shameful period that Muggles regret-
"Shameful is an understatement," Draco told her, tapping his foot with agitation. "I thought you were the clever one-
"I never once said I thought it was right," she defended quickly. "I'm saying that it happened and-
"Well, it's a bloody joke," he snarled, his breathing slightly elevated with his ire. "I can't believe you would side with a species that would segregate according to skin colour. It's jut skin. It's not something anyone can control."
There it is...
Hermione swallowed away a nervous scratch in her windpipe and squared her shoulders. "Yes," she said as steadily as she could. "It's unfair to judge a person by something they can't help, isn't it?"
Draco snapped his head up and wanted to inhale the words back into his mouth. The topic of their heated conversation had instantly crested into a sensitive territory; her blood.
The creases of his earlier rage slowly dissipated from his snowy features, leaving wide silver eyes and slightly parted lips. His fair eyebrows drew together with ill-veiled confusion and something that bordered anxiety seized every muscle in his sinewy shape. He was tense and stiff, but when Hermione took a closer look, she could see the small, volatile vibrations of his clasped hands, and she stilled her breaths. The silence was humid, and Hermione didn't dare flinch when a rumble of wind sliced it in half.
"You sly bitch," Draco murmured quietly, his expression blank. "You did that on purpose-
"I simply gave you some history and facts," she reasoned with deceptive composure. "You came to your own conclusion-
"It's different, Granger!" he interrupted adamantly, banging his balled fist onto the table with a shrill bash. "The circumstances are completely fucking different!"
"The circumstances are always different," she said slowly, ignoring the compulsion to back away from him. "But...but the point and the problem are always the same-
"Fuck you," he growled. "If you think this has changed my opinions towards Muggles then you are bloody wrong, Granger!"
"That's up to you," she shrugged with forced nonchalance, but she could see the doubt behind the silver flecks in his stormy glare, and that was what she had wanted. "Is there anything else you'd like me to get from Hogsmeade?"
Draco relaxed is mouth and leaned back into the couch, warily keeping his attention on her innocent features. "You know, you're quite a conniving cow, Granger," he told her blandly.
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