Hermione was completely overwhelmed. She and Malfoy were touring the most immense and advanced Potions laboratory she had ever seen. Suddenly a warning alarm sounded. A large dome came down from the ceiling about two meters from where they stood, covering one Potions table completely and protecting the room from the muffled explosion that erupted underneath it.
“Seamus Finnegan could have used one of those!” Draco said, laughing.
“If you’ve seen enough, we’ll head out to the Parc Rond. Our next stop is the Quidditch pitch.” Their pretty blond tour guide, Josette, spoke with a thick French accent and, in a repeat of their trip to UWL, she only had eyes for Malfoy. “I hear you play Quidditch, Draco,” she said, smiling up at him.
“Yes, but I don’t think I’m good enough to make the WUP team,” Draco replied. He glanced sidelong at Hermione, unsure what reaction she was having to the overt flirting from their tour guide.
“Oh, I’m sure you are,” the tour guide said, linking her arm in his.
“Shall I tell her about the Nimbus 2001s?” Hermione whispered sarcastically in Draco’s ear, leaning in on his free side. He rolled his eyes at her, smiling.
“By the way, tonight a group of my friends are having a party and I would like it very much if you would come,” Josette continued, obviously speaking exclusively to Malfoy.
At that point, Draco broke loose from Josette’s grip and put his arm around Hermione’s shoulders. “I’ll have to check with Hermione to see what plans we have for this evening.” When Josette frowned slightly, Draco continued. “Oh, didn’t you know? We’re together, Hermione and me.” Josette gave Hermione a quick up and down glance, her frown becoming more pronounced.
“She probably doesn’t think I’m pretty enough for you, Draco, love,” Hermione played along, laughing.
“That’s because she didn’t see you at our Halloween Ball,” Draco said, trying to keep a straight face.
“The Quidditch pitch is just down this path to the right.” Josette was suddenly all business.
Draco and Hermione followed Josette around the path that circled the Parc Rond, which even knowing no French at all, Hermione could deduce meant ‘round park.’ The university was shaped like a large eye, with a concentric circle of buildings around a park in the middle, surrounded by a huge oval. The immense Potions laboratory building sat where the circle and oval met on the Northern border of the campus. They followed Josette on the path to the West, moving past the Wand Lore building and the Magical Interspecies Relations building. Draco had teased her when they learned about WUP’s program in Interspecies Relations, “They’d appreciate SPEW here; you could form a student knitting group…”
Next, they walked past the Great Hall that serviced the ten or so dormitories that spilled out onto the oval behind it, then past the Divinations and Arithmancy building. At this point, they exited the Parc Round, following a path that led down a slight hill to the Quidditch pitch, which sat at the Southern side of the Western oval area. The stadium was huge, making Hogwarts’ pitch seem amateur by comparison.
After they had seen the Quidditch pitch, sitting for a few minutes in the stands to take it all in, they climbed back up the hill to the inner circle of buildings again. Once on the Parc Rond path again, they passed the Astronomy building, which had three tall towers erupting from its roof, to the History and Ancient Languages building. There, they turned onto a path taking them to the very center of the Parc Rond. A small, formal garden lay impeccable before them. Behind it stood the Administration building and a building that housed the Musée de la Magie, together forming the iris of the eye shaped campus. Hermione was anxious to see the museum, but so far, their tour had focused on the academic departments and student activity centers.
Josette left them in the formal garden, explaining that another student would meet them in two hours at this very spot to tour the other half of the campus. From where they stood, Hermione could see the Herbology building beside the immense Potions edifice where they had spent most of the morning. Down behind the Herbology building, she could see that the Northeastern side of the oval was full of greenhouses, herb gardens, and orchards. The next building along the Parc Rond circular path was the Spells and Charms building, and next to it sat a very small building she wasn’t sure about. She thought maybe Draco knew what it was.
“What’s that small building in between the Spells and Charms building and the Defense Against the Dark Arts building?” she asked.
“That’s the Care of Magical Creatures offices,” Draco answered. “Come, look down below. They have a huge area for housing Magical Creatures. Your friend Loony Lovegood would bite your arm off for this place.”
Draco led her on the path back to the History and Ancient Languages building, around past the Defense Against the Dark Arts building, to the small Care of Magical Creatures building. From here, she could see down the hillside to the immense corrals and barns that must have housed hundreds, if not thousands, of creatures. In one corral, she could see a Welsh Green dragon that appeared to have an injured wing.
“Hagrid would be in heaven here!”
“He’d get himself killed, he would!” Draco said scornfully.
“Don’t criticize Hagrid, you prat,” Hermione scolded. “But I have to say, WUP is marvelous. And beautiful, too. I didn’t think I was going to like the Gothic architecture, but the buildings are lovely and there are so many different types of gardens, formal and informal. I bet it’s even more beautiful in the spring.”
“After you went on and on about loving the lighter colors at UWL, I expected you to complain about everything being gray here, like Hogwarts. Even the weather is gray today.” Draco looked up at the overcast sky.
“It’s February, what do you expect?” Hermione smiled. “But I find that the stones in the buildings are so much smaller than Hogwarts, it gives the buildings a lighter feeling, somehow,” Hermione giggled at the thought of calling the gothic structures around the Parc Rond ‘light,’ but compared to Hogwarts, that is precisely how they seemed to her.
Since they had a two hour break for lunch, Draco and Hermione decided to walk a bit around some of the famous spots in Muggle Paris. The Wizarding University of Paris was magically situated inside the Universite de la Sorbonne Nouvelle, in between Notre Dame and the Jardin du Luxembourg. At one point, they stood on the bridge, Passerelle des Arts, overlooking the Seine.
“I hope you aren’t offended by my little charade during the tour this morning,” Draco said.
“Ha! It must get very old for you to have so many young women chatting you up,” Hermione said mockingly.
“That’s only because they don’t know that I’m an ass,” Draco said, smiling.
“True,” Hermione agreed.
“I also hope that my obnoxious behavior back in the old days at Hogwarts didn’t seriously affect how you feel about yourself today.”
“You mean all the Mudblood stuff? Nah, why should that affect a young girl, with few friends, trying to make her way in a foreign environment?”
“Well, actually I meant the Densaugio incident,” Draco clarified. “Even I’ll admit there are many beautiful Muggle women out there.” He smiled.
“Actually, I felt a bit better about myself after you made my teeth grow like a rabbit. I had Madam Pomfrey fix them up a bit when she cured me.” Hermione bared her teeth for Malfoy. “See? They were actually longer before.”
“And I’ve made fun of your curly hair…” Draco admitted.
“Yes, yes, I understand. You are forgiven for any and all insults made before you got to know me this year,” Hermione said. “You can stop now.” Hermione changed the subject. “So, WUP is spectacular, don’t you think?”
“UWL was very pretty and had a very inviting, warm atmosphere.”
“Stop trying so hard to be nice. I’m beginning to think someone Imperio’d you.”
“All right, well, I think on all other dimensions, WUP clearly dominates UWL. Especially for me. That Potions lab was really impressive.”
“And you probably like the fact that there are nearly five thousand undergraduate students.”
“Yes, much better to remain an anonymous former Death Eater.”
“Yes, and it also guarantees that there are hundreds more like Josette, ready to follow you around.”
“Maybe I can Densaugio myself,” Draco said, laughing. “And leave them that way, of course!” Draco looked thoughtful. “I think you will be very happy at UWL, in London, with Ron and your friends and even your parents close by. Although, to be honest, since I’m on a roll here, I’ll admit, I’d prefer it if you’d come to Paris with me.”
Hermione looked at Draco, shocked. “You’re must be really desperate,” she joked.
“Hard times,” Draco said, winking.
That evening, Draco and Hermione walked to a sidewalk café for dinner. They talked excitedly about all the things they had seen and learned about the university that day. After dinner they walked back to the WUP dorms, taking a roundabout path in order to see a few more views of Muggle Paris.
When they got to their floor, Draco lingered outside Hermione’s door. “May I come in for a while?” he asked.
“Sure. Did you bring the book I got you for Christmas? I’d like to look at their side by side comparisons of WUP and UWL, now that we’ve seen them both for ourselves.”
“Yeah, I did. Let me run and get it. I worry if I Accio a heavy book in an unfamiliar place I might hit someone!” Draco was back in just a few moments. “On page 413 they have a nice chart listing the relative advantages and disadvantages of each university,” he said.
Hermione examined the chart closely. She looked up, a little disappointed. “WUP has a stronger multidisciplinary program than the one I was interested in at UWL,” she said sadly.
“I wouldn’t worry about it,” Draco said. “What you get out of a program depends mostly on what you put in. You know that already, from Hogwarts.”
The pair spent nearly an hour poring over Draco’s book, plus the materials Hermione had collected on their tour. Eventually, Hermione yawned and told Draco she was tired.
“All right, I’ll let you get some sleep then. Tomorrow we meet with the Admissions Department.”
“Yes, you need to be on the top of your game. Although I’m sure with a strong letter of recommendation from Headmistress McGonagall and your grades, you’ll be accepted easily.”
“I suppose it depends on how much they know about the war in the U.K. last year. They could hold my past against me.”
“It didn’t come up when we met with the Admissions Officer in London,” Hermione replied.
“Yes, well, I’m not sure they’d come right out and say, ‘No former Death Eaters allowed.’”
“I suppose they could also say, ‘No Muggle-borns allowed.’”
“No, they wouldn’t ever say that aloud – they’d just think it and then ding you on some other, more politically correct criterion.”
“That’s reassuring, you git,” Hermione punched Draco lightly on the arm.
“You’ll get in wherever you apply. You are brilliant, you are famous, you are a fucking war hero.”
“Prejudice runs deep.”
“And now it runs against us both.”
“Welcome to my world, Malfoy. It’s not so bad unless you have a particularly obnoxious nemesis who rubs your face in it constantly.”
Draco pulled Hermione in for a hug. “You know I’m totally and completely sorry about all that.”
“Yes, I do know that now.” Hermione hugged him back, tentatively. “But it’s fun for me to give you a hard time about it. Consider it my revenge!”
Draco pulled back slightly and smiled a bit forlornly. He brushed a stray hair back from Hermione’s face then leaned in and kissed her gently.
“Draco,” Hermione said, pulling away. “You have to stop this. I have a boyfriend. I can’t kiss you.”
“I know, I know. I’m sorry.” Draco stepped back from Hermione. “I just don’t know why I keep doing this. Well, maybe I do. I’ve never really had a female friend before. I don’t know exactly how I’m supposed to behave, so I just act the way I’ve always acted with the girls I’ve hung out with. But they’ve all been friends with benefits, as you say, so that sort of behavior is completely inappropriate in your case. I apologize. I’ll do better, I promise, all right?” he said, raising both arms up slightly, in mock surrender.
“Please, I’d like being friends with you, but not the kind with benefits. I won’t be able to hang out with you if you don’t stop coming on to me. It’s not fair to Ron,” Hermione said firmly, although in the back of her mind she knew she had participated whole-heartedly most of the time, especially last week. ‘I’m a hypocrite,’ she thought.
“Alright. I understand. I’ll do better.”
“Thanks,” Hermione said, unwilling to think any further about the fact that she had actually been enjoying Draco’s overt displays of affection.