Hermione was the last to leave the arithmacy classroom. She had forgotten one of her quills and went back for it. ‘Pull yourself together, Hermione!’ she thought. She had walked through the last few days in a fog. She could still see the look on his face as the bludger came at him. She closed her eyes as she remembered, yet again, the sound of the ball hitting his skull. “Stop it!” she said out loud. Madam Pomfrey said he would be fine but Hermione just could not stop dwelling on him and how he still had not woken. ‘What is with you lately?’ she wondered to herself, ‘why can’t you get him out of your head?’ She couldn't put her finger on the reason he kept lingering in the back of her mind. She finally pulled herself out of her personal fog when she realized she was alone and in a part of the castle she had never been in before. She glanced around and hurried back the way she came when suddenly she ran into someone who had seemingly stepped out from INSIDE the wall. Both she and the person’s belongings flew everywhere as they fell to the floor. She was up in a second with her wand at the ready but so was he.
“Malfoy?” she breathed as she tried to catch her breath. “Wha--”
“Granger,” he spat cutting her off, “What the devil are you doing down here? Looking to get your little mudblood self cursed right out of school?” He raised his wand and stepped closer to her, backing her between the wall and a statue.
She glared up at him, raising her wand to below his chin. “No, I...I...” she stammered not wanting to tell him she was lost. Realizing now that she was standing outside of the slytherin common room and was completely alone with him, his usual cronies Crabbe and Goyle missing. Her mind spun as she tried to think of a reason for being down here--before they came along putting her in an even worse situation. Finally she said, “I was following a professor...Dumbledore! And I...got separated, I thought I saw him come down here...?”
He stepped even closer to her, grabbing her wand. “You’re a terrible liar, Granger,” he yanked the wand out of her hand and tossed it down the hallway. “But there IS something about you...” he lowered his wand and moved his face closer to hers mere centimeters away....
****************
Ron awoke with a start. The first word out of his mouth as he tried to get up was “Hermione!” He stood up, wobbly on his feet and, after slipping stiffly back into his robes, he snuck to the door of the hospital wing, making sure madam Pomfrey was still in her office.
The first person he saw in the hallway was Neville. “Ron! Your back! Oh good! H--”
Ron cut him off. “Neville! Have you seen Hermione? I REALLY need to talk to her!”
Neville shrugged, “No, Ron I haven’t she had Arithmacy and I had--”
Ron didn’t hear the rest he was off down the hallway toward the classroom she had just been in. As he passed a corridor leading down to the dungeons, he paused. “Malfoy, What do you...” the rest was muffled and then cut off but Ron was sure it was her voice. He dashed down the hall without realizing which one it was or what Hermione had said.
About halfway down the hallway he stopped dead in his tracks his jaw dropping. There she was, he had been dreaming about her the entire time he was in the hospital wing. Noticing who she was with, Ron suddenly realized exactly which hallway he was in, having been down here his second year while posing as Crabbe. She was leaning against the wall and Malfoy, his mortal enemy, had his filthy hands on her. He was kissing her! One hand on the side of her face the other still holding her wand arm. Ron felt like his heart had stopped. He couldn’t breathe. He wasn’t even aware of taking his wand out until he realized he didn’t know any spells strong enough to hurt Malfoy the way he wanted to. He lowered his wand and turned to go. ‘If she wants to be with him then that’s her choice...I hope she’ll be happy,’ he thought as he felt tears beginning to prickle in his eyes.
Next Page
Main Stories