Bad decision number 367: Going out with Viktor Krum.
Hermione Granger read, and re-read the Owl several times over, attempting to leech the smallest amount of affection from the unaffectionate words of the letter. The meaning was simple: She was dumped.
Viktor had never really been good with words - being more of a physical person - and he hadn't even tried to soften them in the Little Message of Doom. It was too hard, he felt, to have a relationship over a continent. Also, his Quidditch career was at its peak, which meant he wouldn't have much time for the in-depth conversations they were used to. Finally, he'd met someone else, a nice Bulgarian girl - Hermione would like her -, someone who didn't object to going further than a kiss on the cheek. He wished her well for the future, Viktor Krum.
Huddling lower in her chair in the Gryffindor common room, Hermione viciously swiped at the tears that threatened to start flowing. She shouldn't cry. She should wish the girl well. Yeah, right.
Harry and Ron watched her worriedly from the doorway.
"How long has she been reading that letter for?" muttered Harry.
"2 hours now," Ron checked his watch, "maybe 3."
Harry studied his friend who was curled into a ball of misery, and turned to Ron.
"Have you still got that bottle of Firewhisky under your bed?"
Ron glanced at him suspiciously. "Yeah, it's hidden under the invisibility cloak. Why?"
"We should give it to 'Mione. She looks like she needs it."
Ron scowled. "No way. It took me a month to save up for that!"
"But look at her!" Harry pleaded. "Come on, Ron, I'll buy you another one for Christmas. OK? She needs to drown her sorrows for a night."
Ron thought. "Make it 2," he snapped, and grumpily went upstairs to the boys dorms.
Hermione sat, slumped, staring into the fire, re-living all the memories she had of her relationship with Viktor: Her summer in his mansion in Bulgaria… skiing in the Alps… searching for the archaic book of old spells in his father's vast library…
She jumped as the Owl was twitched out of her numb fingers. Staring at Harry, she tried to recollect, vaguely, who he was.
"Here you go, 'Mione," he said, gently.
A bottle was pushed into her hands, and she gripped it as though it was her last ticket to Heaven. Then she read the label, and her eyes widened.
"What - Harry, no! It's - it's illegal for us to have this, we're underage!"
She glanced up. Harry had gone. Sighing, she put the Firewhisky firmly aside, beside her chair, and returned to her memories.
"She's not going to drink it," hissed Ron to Harry from beneath the invisibility cloak.
"Give it time," muttered Harry, back. "That girl has an overwhelming sense of curiosity."
"Well, she better start drinking fast. I've got an extremely pressing engagement with Lavender in the Third Floor Corridor."
The minutes ticked by. Hermione grew steadily more miserable. No matter how hard she tried to stop it, her mind kept returning to the bottle beside her chair. Tapping her fingers on the arms, she fought to keep herself from grabbing the bottle.
"I give it 3 more minutes," murmured Harry. "Four at the most."
"How do you know?"
"She's doing that tappy-thing with her fingers again."
Maybe one little taste wouldn't hurt. She could cope with Butterbeer, anyway. She'd managed to stand upright when most of her year-mates were legless at the last party in the Room of Requirement. How bad could Firewhisky be?
She reached for the bottle, and gingerly unscrewed the lid. Lifting it to her lips, she took a gulp.
And choked.
Spluttering, she managed to swallow the rest of the mouthful. Then smiled as a warm feeling spread from her mouth to her toes. Feeling braver, she took another sip from the bottle. The alcohol, warmed by the fire, wrapped her in a little cocoon.
Tonight she would exorcise the memory of Viktor Krum.
Draco Malfoy, Slytherin sex god and general fiend, wandered out of the Quidditch cabin, lazily zipping up his jeans. Looking at his shirt, he winced. The buttons were beyond hope. As he turned to leave, he heard a low moan of satisfaction from the hut behind him. Alarmed, he picked up the pace. If that Hufflepuff had come round from petite morte, he didn't want to be there when she decided she wanted a second ride. What on earth had possessed him to take on that girl? She was only reasonable in the sack after all, and she had the intellectual field the size of a small puddle.
Slinking round the side of the pitch, and turning left by the lake, he slipped into the castle through the side entrance that only Slytherins knew about. Finally slowing down, praying he'd lost the girl, he sauntered through the corridors, glaring at the pictures as he passed. He didn't care about walking around the castle at night. Filch owed his father, and security was always lax around the Slytherin area of the castle. Slytherins didn't need protection from Voldemort.
"Drakie-poo!"
Voldemort or not, he needed protection from the Ghosts of Conquests Past. By the sound of her less-than-mellow voice, the Hufflepuff was pretty close. Making a rapid decision, he virtually threw himself into a nearby deserted classroom, and silently shut the door. Turning around, he stopped dead in his tracks, and stared.
Lying in a heap on the floor, was Hermione Granger, completely out of it
Intrigued, he came forward to take a closer look.
"Could tonight get any stranger?" He wondered, aloud. "First, I escape from little Miss Mowbray unscathed -" looking at his shirt "- well, almost, and second, I find Granger, lying in what seems to be a drunken stupor."
Leaning forward, he cautiously poked her with a long forefinger. Seeing that this prompted nothing from her but a snore, he grinned.
"Well, well, Granger, what have we been doing?"
Spotting the bottle, he tugged it out of her grasp. He glanced at the amount left in the bottle and whistled.
"I'm impressed, Granger. A whole bottle of Firewhisky, and you didn't pass out over just half? That's some feat."
Standing up and walking back to the door, he was about to leave, when a nagging thought came into his mind. Looking back at the pathetic, snoring figure, he sighed, and stomped back to her.
"I suppose you know I can't leave you here like this. You're lucky, Granger. For some reason unknown to man, I'm in a good mood tonight. I'll dump you outside Gryffindor so you can hope that one of your heroic little friends comes to pick you up."
Picking up the bottle of Firewhisky, he swallowed the remaining contents, and threw the bottle out of a nearby window.
"Plus, in a way you're doing me a favour. By going to Gryffindor, I'll hopefully be out of reach of Selena Mowbray. She wants me to screw her again," he added, by way of explanation, "And I'm kind of tired of getting no satisfaction and all my shirts ripped."
Crouching down by the girl, Malfoy gently turned her onto her back, brushing her hair out of her face. Propping up her knees, he noticed how long her legs were. Looking at her legs drew his eyes upwards, and he scanned her figure. For the second time that night, he gave an appreciative whistle.
"What else are you hiding under those robes, Granger?"
Sliding one hand under her shoulders, and the other under her knees, he stood up, carrying Hermione in his arms. He scowled at how light she was.
"You should eat more," he told the unconscious girl. "Then again, you probably prefer work to food. Work to sex, too."
Kicking the door open, he set off down the corridor. When he got past the Third Floor Corridor, a thought suddenly hit him. What on earth was wrong with him? This girl was supposed to be his hated enemy, and yet he was cradling her in his arms. It must be something he'd eaten recently. Why hadn't he left her there? Normally he'd have been only too happy to do so. Definitely something he'd eaten. Or maybe it was a combination of boring sex with attempted escape from Selena Mowbray that was making him light-headed. And she was a Mudblood, who didn't deserve to belong to his world. He shuddered to think what his father would do if he knew what Malfoy was doing now.
"Maybe it's the Firewhisky," he murmured.
Turning into the Gryffindor corridor, he was greeted with a yell of fury.
"Get your filthy hands off her!"
"Well, well," Malfoy drawled. "Saint Potty and Weasel King. My day is complete."
Harry and Ron hurtled towards him, snarling curses. Holding out his armful of Hermione, Malfoy curled his lip disdainfully.
"I think this belongs to you," he said, and tipped Hermione into Harry's outstretched arms. Carefully, Harry laid Hermione on the floor. Meeting Ron's eyes, Malfoy carefully wiped his hands on his jeans. Ron snarled and lunged forward, held back - barely - by Harry.
"If you've done anything to her, you bastard -"
"I wouldn't want to get my hands dirty," snapped back Malfoy. Seeing Ron strain forward to get at him again, Malfoy grinned, gave a careless wave, and sauntered back down the corridor.
"Nighty-night, children."