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Two: Dreams

Draco was running. Branches and leaves slapped him in the face, stinging and cutting him, yet he pressed forward, not daring to look back for fear of what he might find behind him. Roots seemed to jump out of the ground, attempting to wrap themselves around his ankles and pull him to the ground so that his pursuer might catch him. His breaths came in short, quick bursts and he wondered how much longer he could run before his legs gave out. The burning sensation in his lungs told him that he didn't have much longer before he was caught.

He chanced a glance over his shoulder as he entered a clearing in the woods, sure that he wouldn't trip. Fifteen yards behind him at most loped a large, white wolf, its dark eyes trained on Draco. His eyes widened in terror at the size of the animal. It had to be at least a hundred and ninety pounds and would have been eye-level with him if he had stood in front of it. However, Draco had no intentions of doing that. It was pure muscle and rage, from what Draco could see, and there was no way that he would make it out of that altercation alive, even if he had his wand and could breathe well enough to cast a spell. He turned his head back around, resolving never to look back again. Instead, he dove back into the throng of trees and bushes as he made it across the clearing, hoping he could make it to somewhere that could offer him at least a fraction of the protection he needed against the beast behind him.

He ran for what felt like ages longer. His legs began to grow heavier, his breath was even shorter, and he was tripping more and more often. Draco could practically feel the wolf's breath on his neck. Finally, he tripped but couldn't right himself before falling to the earth. He rolled onto his back, closed his eyes, and waited for the worst. Rather than the sharp pain of teeth in his leg or arm and the weight of the wolf on top of him, Draco felt nothing. He waited a moment, keeping his eyes clamped shut. What was the wolf doing? It hadn't chased him all this way just to let him walk away unscathed.

Draco slowly opened his eyes, unsure of whether to believe was he was seeing. Above him stood...himself. It was like looking into a mirror. Draco sat on the ground for a moment, awed by what he saw before him. He managed to scramble to his feet, looking his doppelganger over. He looked around suspiciously for the wolf, but finding no trace of it, opted to scrutinize the man in front of him.

The doppelganger had his same tall, lithe figure. His shoulders were broad, his arms and legs sinewy. His posture was impeccable, just as Draco's was. His hair was white-blond and reflected the moonlight in a sort of halo around his head. His aristocratic features matched Draco's perfectly: thin lips; sharp, thin nose; high cheekbones; arched brows; nary a wrinkle to be found on his porcelain skin. The only thing that seemed to differ between Draco and his copycat were their eyes: Draco had steel grey eyes that, when one looked from the right angle, seemed to sparkle a light blue; this other Draco had dark, black pebbles for eyes. They seemed to be almost dead, as though their owner could feel nothing - as though the owner wasn't really a person.

Draco stumbled backwards and away from the doppelganger, tripping over a root and falling. The other Draco began to advance on him, his lips spreading in a wide grin. The closer he got to Draco, the more Draco could see his teeth. Long, sharp fangs coming towards him - snapping at him - then tearing into his arm as he screamed wildly in pain...

0000

"MALFOY!" he heard a voice scream. There was a tone of concern in the voice. His eyes shot open as he sat straight up in bed. He looked around, taking in his bedroom at Hogwarts as his heart raced. It had only been his home for a few days, but he had never been happier to see a room in his life. There was a loud banging on the door.

"MALFOY!" he heard again, finally recognizing the voice as Hermione's. Draco turned to look at the clock: 4:37 A.M. He ran his hands through his hair, thanking Merlin that it had only been a dream and that he hadn't really been torn apart by his copycat. He could hear some muttering outside of his door, then a muffled click. The door banged open and before him stood Hermione in nothing but an oversized t-shirt and her underwear, having obviously just been woken up. She looked half-asleep still, her hair in a state of dishevel he hadn't seen since their first year. Her sleepy brown eyes scanned the room, growing more and more alert as the seconds passed. Her wand was raised as though she expected some sort of threat.

Finally, Hermione's eyes fell on Draco sitting in his bed. He was shirtless, and she wasn't sure whether to avert her eyes or not. He met her eyes for a moment, watching her take in his appearance, making sure that he was all right. He took the moment to look her over as well, still somewhat asleep and in no control of his actions. She was extremely slim. Draco could see very little of her torso because of the oversized Chudley Cannons shirt she wore - he assumed it was Ron's - but her legs were out in the open. She was obviously strong - war will do that to people. She had some of the best legs he had ever seen, and that was saying something. The more he let his eyes rove, the more he woke up and the more aroused he was becoming.

He felt his blood go on fire again, as it had when they had made eye contact when they had first entered their common room. This grounded him back to reality, and he realized where this was headed and how unsafe it was for her right now. His eyes had surely clouded over, betraying the fact that he was feeling something very strong. Draco considered himself lucky that Hermione's eyes were elsewhere, seeming to check him over for wounds or anything that might be considered "not good," otherwise she might have seen what lurked behind his eyes.

"I heard screaming," she murmured, looking uncomfortable. She lowered her wand but remained on edge, gripping it tightly.

Draco cursed himself. "Bad dream," he whispered, looking out the window above his desk. A half moon looked back at him through the panes of glass, almost taunting him.

"Are you all right?" Hermione asked. Her belly had flipped as she had looked Draco over, taking in his lithe form. His skin was perfect, shining in the moonlit room like a light. She was half-asleep, unable to control herself entirely, and found herself drawn to him by some sort of almost feral attraction. She didn't want to leave right then. Maybe it was her maternal instincts as a female, but she felt something in the air that said Draco was not all right by any definition of the word.

Draco nodded, still looking out the window. He was still trying to calm himself down, and having Hermione sticking her nose into this wasn't going to help him. He could sense her worry, though he didn't know why she was worried for him. They weren't exactly on the best of terms - never had been, really.

"Are you sure?" she asked, taking a step toward his bed. Draco's eyes slid from the window to her immediately and she stopped in her tracks. He sneered at her from his perch on his bed, swaddled in his silk sheets.

"Even if I wasn't, what help would you ever be to me?" he lashed out, knowing even as he said the words that they were inaccurate. If anyone would be able to help him out if he wasn't all right, Hermione Granger was the girl for the job. However, he didn't want her help, or anyone's help for that matter. He was dealing with this on his own and Hermione would only add fuel to the fire in his blood that would lead to a very problematic series of events. He didn't even want to imagine them. "Get out, Granger."

Hermione's face hardened. She turned her nose up at him. "Well pardon me, oh great Head Boy, for coming to check on you as you had a bad dream," she spat out, turning on her heel to the door. She slammed it behind her, not bothering to replace the locking charm she had disarmed to get into the room.

Draco sighed and leaned back into his pillows, staring at the ceiling.

0000

The next night, Draco relived the same nightmare and woke screaming again. And again, Hermione had rushed to his room, unlocked his door, and left in a huff of indignation when Draco spat some sort of insult at her for checking on him. Their exchanges during the day were becoming more and more strained due to these altercations, and Draco was starting to get weary of sleep. The worse he slept, the more irritated he got, which in turn meant he was more likely to lose control. He could not allow that to happen.

When he had the dream for a third night in a row, he went to Madam Pomfrey and asked for a Dreamless Sleep potion, telling her that he was having nightmares that were making it hard for him to sleep. Madam Pomfrey had obliged, giving him enough potion to last him the rest of the month. He couldn't help but be relieved that he would finally be getting some decent rest. Quidditch try outs were coming up the next week, and as the captain of the team, he would need to be in top shape to choose the team that would, hopefully, bring Slytherin back to their prime.

Hermione, on the other hand, was dreading the Quidditch season's start. She had been bombarded by Ron and Harry for the first week about Draco enough - mostly Ron, of course - that she was sick of the whole lot of them. She could only imagine how bad the pair would become once the rivalry between houses was kindled by the sport. She had been burying herself in her studies, doing her best to block out the constant hum of Ron, Harry, and even Ginny about the upcoming season. The only solace she took from knowing what was in store for the coming weeks was that Draco would be in the common room much less frequently as he would be busy doing captain-y things for the Slytherin Quidditch team.

She couldn't wait to have the dormitory to herself for a while. Maybe she could bring Ron back for a little snogging by the fire. Not that Ron had been particularly interested in snogging of late. Or anything to do with Hermione, really. She couldn't really blame him, if she was being honest with herself. Her classes and duties as Head Girl were taking up most of her time, and soon Quidditch would be taking up most of his free time. She could already see that their relationship was doomed to fail - right now, at least.

Hermione had been trying to work up the courage to tell him that they should wait until they were done with school to date again for the majority of the week, since she had realized that juggling Ron with her other priorities was not going to work out in either of their favors. Something would end up suffering, and Hermione was not willing to allow that something to be her grades or her responsibilities as Head Girl. And Ron would just have to understand that.

The Friday of the first week of classes, Hermione marched up to Ron in the library during their free period and tapped him on his shoulder, tearing him away from a conversation about Nargles that he was having with Luna Lovegood. She looked soberly down at him, dreading what she was about to have to do. But her logic won out, as it always did.

"Ron, could I speak to you for a moment?" Hermione asked. "Luna, do you mind? I'm really sorry to interrupt."

Luna smiled up at Hermione from her seat and shook her head, standing quickly. She skipped away, waving at Ron over her shoulder. When she had disappeared around a bookshelf, Hermione slid into the seat that Luna had vacated. She folded her hands on the table and looked at Ron. This wasn't going to be easy, she knew that. Although they had only been together for a couple of months, she knew that there were strong feelings between them. She didn't like the idea of hurting him.

"So," said Ron, "what's up?"

Hermione looked down at her folded hands with a furrowed brow. She had planned exactly how to say this before she had come to the library, so why couldn't she remember what it was that she wanted to say?

"Well - I - er... Really, Ron, it's that - I can't -" Hermione was having trouble finding the words. Ron stared at her from across the table, bewildered. She took a deep breath to steady her nerves. "I have a lot on my plate this term, Ron," Hermione finally said. "It's not easy to juggle it all: Head Girl duties, classes, homework, studying, dating. I'm having issues keeping everything balanced, lately."

A look of surprised understanding lit up Ron's face. He looked down at the table in between them, unsure of what to do or say.

"It's not that I don't care about you," continued Hermione. "It's just that I have so many other requirements that I have to worry about right now and I'm not giving you the attention you deserve. I want us to wait to date again until after we're done with school and have settled into a life outside of Hogwarts. Can you understand?"

She looked at him hopefully, willing him to look up at her. He nodded slowly, meeting her eyes. He looked sad, but she could tell that he understood. She didn't know how things between them would be for the next few weeks, seeing as they would be forced to be around each other by their mutual friends, but she knew that soon enough they would be back to normal and no one would feel awkward anymore.

Ron stood from the table then, giving Hermione a shaky smile as he walked away. She watched him go, his tall frame looking odd next to all of the empty library tables that didn't even reach as high as his waist. She sighed, feeling as though a weight had been lifted from her but also feeling as though a hole had been punched through her stomach. It was as though she had suddenly gone empty and there was nothing there anymore. Her brows knit together in confusion, and she could only guess, from her limited experience with relationships, that this was what it was like to break up with someone you truly cared about. She didn't like it.

Hermione sat at the library table for some time after that. She couldn't stop thinking about everything, trying to see another option where they could be together and make it work. But with Ron's duties on the Quidditch team, helping Harry captain and coach the team, and as a Prefect, coupled with her studies and duties as Head Girl, they would never see each other. Mondays, Wednesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays, when they weren't game days, were practice days for Ron and Harry. Hermione had meetings and tutoring sessions every day as Head Girl. They really would only see one another at meals and at meetings with Professor McGonagall, and that was hardly enough to keep a relationship going in the long run. Hermione shook her head, exasperated.

When she finally looked at her watch, she realized that she had missed dinner entirely and groaned. She would have to go to the kitchen and ask the elves to whip her up something. Again. It was becoming a daily routine for her, missing at least one meal every day. Soon the elves that worked in the kitchen would no longer know her as 'the crazy lady who invented S.P.E.W.' and would begin calling her by her name. Hermione sighed and pushed herself up from the table, leaving the library and heading down to the kitchens.

As she approached the large doors leading into the even larger kitchen, she could hear an elf arguing with a man. She stopped outside the door and listened, intrigued.

"But Master Malfoy, you've come down here three times every day apart from your regular meals," she heard an elf say. "It is against the rules to give students food that often unless they've missed all three of their meals that day."

"Then tell anyone who asks that I missed all three of my meals," Hermione heard Draco snap at the elf. She could feel her blood running hotter at the tone he was taking with the elf, who Hermione knew was just doing her job. She restrained herself from bursting through the door yet, though, curious what Draco was eating so much so often for.

"But sir, that would be lying," said the elf.

Hermione could almost hear the expression of annoyance on Draco's face and imagined he was rolling his eyes. "Then lie."

Hermione knew that it was against everything the elves stood for to lie to their masters or their employers. They lived to serve, something that had always bothered her about their dispositions. She didn't think that an elf could lie, even if they wanted to.

"Look, elf," Draco snarled, "I don't care about your rules. I need that food. So hop to it, right now."

She heard the sound of small feet scuffling across the kitchen floor as the elves scurried off. Hermione sighed again, knowing that Draco had probably pulled his wand out on them, scaring them into doing as he wanted. Her mind began to work overtime, attempting to figure out why Draco would need not just one, but three extra meals every day. No one ate that much every day without getting rather fat, not even Ron or Harry. There had to be some outside reason he was eating so much so often. Perhaps he was keeping a secret pet that he fed the food to? Hermione immediately nixed that theory, as Draco had never seemed to like animals nor did he enjoy breaking the rules too often. And having a secret pet would be breaking the rules every second of the day. Not to mention, she would have noticed him sneaking around to take care of it since they shared a common room. No, there was some other reason he was getting food six times a day, and Hermione could only assume that he was actually eating it himself.

She decided to enter the kitchen then, pushing the large oak doors open and trying to feign surprise at seeing Draco there, as though she hadn't been listening at the door. The elves were rushing around the kitchen, some washing pots and pans from the dinner they had cooked that night and others cooking more food for Draco. At her entrance, they began cooking even more food, knowing what Hermione was there for. Draco looked shocked to see her and a little worried that she might have heard his conversation with the elf about how often he was eating. She made sure that she looked innocent as she entered the room, betraying none of the information that she had just overheard.

"Malfoy," she said, nodding. It seemed to take Draco a moment to collect himself.

"Mudblood," he said half-heartedly, trying for his patent sneer but failing miserably. Hermione could tell that Draco was unnerved by her presence. He hadn't expected anyone else to be in the kitchens, and it worried him that Hermione of all people may have overheard something that she shouldn't have. But she didn't seem to know anything was amiss, so Draco calmed down a little.

"Missed dinner again, Miss Granger?" asked a small elf. Hermione had been right: they knew her name now. Sheepishly, Hermione nodded. The elf smiled. "I'll have something ready for you in a jiffy."

Draco scowled at the warm welcome Hermione had received and she could only guess that it was due to the issues he had had getting the elves to make him more food. Hermione had to feign a coughing spasm to mask her the giggling at his expression.

"Did you miss dinner, too, Malfoy?" Hermione asked, trying to sound curious. Draco merely nodded, making it clear that he wanted all of nothing to do with Hermione, which was fine by her. She hadn't wanted to see him either.

They stood in silence for fifteen minutes while the elves hustled about the kitchen. An elf handed Hermione her food before Draco received his, and Hermione took that as a small victory over the snobbish Head Boy. They went their separate ways as they exited the kitchen, Hermione toward the library to do some research on what could possibly cause someone to need three extra meals every day, and Draco to their dormitory to devour his sixth meal of the day.

Hermione's interest had been piqued, to say the least. But she was unsure of where to begin. She opted for Common Magical Ailments and Afflictions first, flipping through its pages and scanning for anything relating to appetite. She found many mentions of the word, none of which related to an increased appetite. The only time appetite was mentioned was when there was a loss of appetite due to a malady.

With a sigh, Hermione took a moment to think. Perhaps Draco was dealing with some sort of beast that he had to feed as often as he fed himself. Taking her chances, against her own judgment of Draco's character, she grabbed Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them from the shelves and tore through it. She found many different animals that might fit the bill of needing to be fed three times every day. She began making a list of them, nixing dragons as she remembered Norbert (who had actually turned out to be Norberta) and how often Hagrid had had to feed the vile creature.

Banshee, tiger, troll, yeti, vampire, hippogriff... Hermione hesitated to write the last magical creature down. Was it even possible that a werewolf could somehow be involved? It said in Scamander's book that werewolves, when not in their wolf form, ate two or three times the normal amount a human would. This fit Hermione's initial impression of Draco that he would not keep an illegal beast at the school. But it seemed so far-fetched that it was almost impossible for Hermione to even consider it a reason for Draco's need for three extra meals.

Glancing at her watch once more, Hermione realized that it was getting late. It was ten thirty and she had to make her rounds of the halls in thirty minutes. She intended to check out quite a few books from the library and she didn't really want to carry those around with her the whole time she made rounds. She packed her books, hoping she had time to check the books she wanted out and drop them off at her dormitory two floors above her.

Madam Pince looked at her strangely when she placed Break with a Banshee, How To Tame Tigers, The Monster Book of Monsters, Travels with Trolls, Year with the Yeti, Handbook of Hippogriff Psychology, A Vampire's Monologue, and Hairy Snout, Human Heart on her desk to check out. It was rare that anyone, even Hermione, checked out eight books, especially on such a variety of subjects. Madam Pince, however, had always liked Hermione and chose to overlook the odd occurrence, taking down a list of the books and having Hermione sign for them saying that she would return them within the next thee weeks.

Hermione left the library, arms and bag laden with books. She managed to drop them off in her dormitory with five minutes to spare before her rounds began. She wandered the corridors, looking for students out of bed, but her mind was elsewhere. She couldn't get the conversation she had overheard earlier out of her head. What was Draco hiding? Why was he getting six meals every day? She didn't know anything, and if there was one thing that Hermione Granger hated, it was not knowing something.

Author's Note: Let's see another teaser, shall we?

Hermione stood at her window with her arms crossed, staring down at the Shrieking Shack, unsure whether to be pleased that she had been right or terrified for her life and the lives of the students at Hogwarts.

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