A/N: Thanks for reading and reviewing! It feels great to be back in D/Hr mode again!
(Chapter Three)
"I must say, Miss Granger," McGonagall was saying, as Hermione found herself stiffly seated on the armchair opposite of her, "I am disappointed in your chosen course of action with today's events. I know that Parkinson is a vile little cretin, but I was expecting more out of you."
For the first time, her Head of House glanced up at her behind her half-moon shaped spectacles. Hermione stared at her in mild shock. She knew her Head of House could be blunt, but calling Pansy Parkinson a "vile little cretin" was certainly new.
"I am sure she deserved it." McGonagall put her parchment away, setting her quill back on its stand. She leaned back to look at her. "That much is always evident. However, that still does not excuse violence, do you understand, Granger?"
Hermione nodded. "Yes, Professor."
Her professor sat there for a moment in silence. Hermione couldn't stand the look of soft pity in her eyes, so she looked away. "I'm sensing a change in you, Granger. The part that worries me is that I can't tell whether this is a good change, or a bad one."
When she didn't say anything in response, she dismissed her.
"You have detention with Professor Sprout tomorrow after classes. Parkinson will have detention elsewhere – we wouldn't want to find you two brawling again out in the field." McGonagall gave her a minute smile. Even with her scolding, Hermione still couldn't shake the feeling that McGonagall was still a little proud of her. "Off you go."
When she entered the Gryffindor common room, she found most of her housemates waiting for her. She also found herself being greeted with a smattering of applause.
"There's the woman of the hour!" she heard Seamus say as he beamed with pride, clapping her on the shoulder.
"She definitely tore Parkinson a new one!" Dean said in agreement.
Hermione felt herself flush, turning away from the unwanted attention. In the back of her mind, she argued against McGonagall's claim. If I really was changing, I would welcome this. But I'm not. I'm exactly the same, she thought.
Ron called her name as he came running down the stairs, followed by Harry. Ginny followed behind, smiling.
"Oy! Hermione, is it true?" Ron said, grabbing her by the shoulders. He winced when he saw the faint fingernail marks on the side of her neck. "Blimey, you're an absolute savage, you are!" he said, shaking his head with a note of pride and admiration in his voice.
"Stop it, Ron," Hermione said, but even her resolve was weak in scolding him. "It's nothing to be proud of."
"Maybe to you," shouted Neville, "but Parkinson has been a pain in the arse for a lot of us here. And for that, you are a shining jewel to Gryffindor House."
Harry was smiling, laughing to himself, but was not as overjoyed as their other housemates. "Look at you, Hermione, you're a hero," he said to her.
"I'm not. I just got carried away," she said, feeling ashamed. Harry calling her a hero just for punching Pansy Parkinson was a new low for her.
"You should get carried away a lot more often," said Ron, who was now biting into a chocolate frog. When she sent him a stern look, he took it back. "Or maybe not."
"Look, I'm just going to go to my room," she said to Harry. "I've had a long day. I'll see you lot tomorrow."
"Just making sure you're all right, Hermione," he said to her.
She exited through the portrait, but Ginny followed after her.
"Hermione," she said, stopping her. "I just wanted to warn you. Pansy and her group, well. . . they can be pretty brutal. She's known for taking things a bit too far, if you know what I mean."
"I'll be fine, Ginny," Hermione said, already getting a little exasperated with the whole thing. "I'm sure I can handle whatever Pansy throws my way. Honestly."
Ginny smiled reassuringly. "Right. Of course you can."
ooo
The next day, after class, she found herself being handed the chore of organizing Professor Sprout's shed. At first, it seemed like no big deal. Hermione lived to organize. But Professor Sprout's shed was cramped with all sorts of tools, and bags of rotted fertilizer, not to mention nests of insects as big as her hand.
She worked until nightfall, her uniform stained with dirt and dust. She was halfway done organizing one side of the shed when Professor Sprout came and told her she was free to go for the night. She looked at the clock. It was time for supper.
When she arrived at the Great Hall, she saw that Pansy was already at her table, eating and laughing with her friends. She'd heard that she'd had detention with Snape, which possibly meant that she'd had no detention at all. She rolled her eyes as she made her way over to where Harry and Ron were.
"Merlin, Hermione, you stink," Ron said, scrunching up his nose as he bit into a gigantic chicken leg.
"I just got done with detention with Professor Sprout," Hermione said, helping herself to whatever was in front of her. She was starving. "I didn't have time to clean up."
"How long are you supposed to report to her?" asked Harry.
"Tomorrow night will be my last. I get harsher punishment on account of how I'm Head Girl," she explained, a bit bitterly.
"Not so smug about being Head Girl now, are you?" Ron said.
Hermione ignored him for the rest of the night.
ooo
Her last night of detention was rather painless, even though the hours seemed to tick by arduously slow. She was able to finish up organizing the shed, and even managed to clean up the thick layer of dust that had swallowed up the entire room. By the end, it was still some kind of accomplishment, and she couldn't help but feel a little proud. It reminded her of spring cleaning, back home. No magic, just her and her mum, putting things away in boxes and dusting all the furniture while her mum played her favorite records. Afterwards, they would always order in some pizza and watch old movies on their television.
The night after detention, she was on her routine after-hours patrol. She'd gone down the corridors and checked all of the empty classrooms. Not once did she happen to come across Malfoy, which made her both relieved and anxious, for reasons she couldn't fathom.
She was up in the Astronomy tower when she saw it. A little flash of motion, a twinkle of light, heading into a classroom. Keeping her wand close, she followed after it.
"Hello?" she called out. "This is the Head Girl. It's after-hours, you aren't supposed to be out here. Come out, so I can see you."
Except nothing did. She stood in the classroom, a tiny beam of light being emitted from her wand. The classroom, from what she could see, was empty.
She heard a faint noise behind her. But before she could turn around, she felt something hit her in the back of the skull and a bright haze of light fill her eyes. And then everything was black.
ooo
When she finally regained consciousness, she found herself staring at a scattering of trees. There was hardly any light but she could see the silhouette of them from the brightness of the moon, and hear the bristling of the leaves and branches in the wind.
When she tried to move, she found that she couldn't. She looked down, her head sore and throbbing. She was tied to a tree.
"Look who's awake for the party," she heard someone say. Pansy Parkinson sauntered into her view. She was fiddling with her wand, smiling wickedly. In Pansy's pocket Hermione could see her own wand, sitting there uselessly. Instantly, she felt a distinct kind of fear fill her. Ginny had warned her about this, but she'd never known the true extent of Pansy's revenge and bloodlust. She'd thought it be something like a hex to make her hair fall out, or an itching curse. Never anything this sinister.
"Pansy, this isn't funny," she said, struggling. The ties didn't budge.
"Of course it isn't, not for you," she said, sweetly. "But for us, it's a big laugh. Isn't it, girls?"
As if on cue, the three of them began cackling. Hermione uselessly struggled against her binds yet again, kicking her feet.
"Let me go," Hermione said through her teeth.
Pansy shook her head, tsking. "Not yet, Granger. Somebody's been a very bad Mudblood, and she needs to learn her lesson. So she's going to learn it. Tonight."
Hermione watched as she cast a silencing charm. She felt dread overcome her, but closed her eyes just as Pansy pointed her wand at her.
"Crucio."
Instantly, she felt pain wash over her body, like a thousand hot knives piercing right through her. She could feel her body convulsing against the binds, her skull knocking back against the tree, almost blacking out her vision. She screamed but nothing came out, just terrifying silence, and the sound of her body as it flailed uncontrollably.
When it ended, her eyes were still shut so tightly she saw white. She could feel sweat pouring down her neck, her heart beating a million times a minute. Her ears rang from the pain. She never felt more grateful in her life. Her bones felt like they had been disintegrated, and she fell limp against her binds.
"Well, that was fun, wasn't it?" she heard Pansy say. "But I daresay I don't think you've learned your lesson yet, Granger. I just didn't feel like you meant it."
The pain returned. This time, it lasted longer – forever, it seemed like. She wasn't aware she had started to cry, until she tasted her tears, which had begun running down her face. Subconsciously, she begged to die.
It stopped only for a second before Pansy raised her wand and uttered the curse again. Faintly, she could hear Millicent uncertainly ask Pansy if they should head back to the castle.
Even Lacey Larkin had recoiled, terror written on her face. "Pans, we should head back. Really."
That night, Hermione lost count of how many times she uttered the curse. She wasn't able to keep a clear thought through it all, just the repeating plead of either death or an end, biting down on her lip until she could taste the blood. She was barely conscious when Pansy finally tucked her wand back into her pocket and came close to her.
"I hope you enjoyed that, Mudblood," she hissed at her. "Because I did."
And then she spat in her face.
She could hear their footsteps as they walked away, snapping twigs under their weight, leaving her all alone in the woods.
ooo
She woke up to the feeling of falling, hearing the thud of the solid weight of her body as she fell down to the ground. Her mind was aware, but when she willed herself to move, her body didn't respond. It was as if all of her nerve endings had been cut off – surprising, since they had been working quite well last night while Pansy tortured her.
She could hear the sound of the morning – birds and wind – as well as someone breathing heavily, faint footsteps against the dead leaves. She felt someone turn her over and attempt to sit her up. Something warm and heavy settled on her shoulders, shaking her.
"Granger, can you hear me? Open your eyes."
She willed her eyes to open. After a few moments, she finally opened them to see a blurry face peering at her, close enough that she could feel his breath on her face. It took a few seconds until her vision cleared, and that's when she realized who it was that had cut her down from the tree.
"I need to get you to the hospital wing. Can you move?"
She swallowed hard. Her throat was so dry it felt like trying to swallow sharp, jagged rocks. As she watched him, his gray eyes hard and determined, she wanted to tell him no. No, she thought. Not you. I don't want be indebted to you even more than I already am. Please, just leave me here.
"No," she said. Her voice was hoarse and barely recognizable.
His eyebrows shot up his forehead. "No?"
"I'll be fine," she said to him. "Just give me a minute."
His expression hardened as his surprise fell away. "You just spent the night tied up to a tree. God knows whatever else they did to you, and you're refusing to go to the hospital wing. This is priceless."
She bit back the urge to snap at him and say, What do you care if I spent the night bound to a tree or not? It was your House that did this to me. Instead, she stared at him. "How did you find me?"
Something flickered across his face. "You never showed up at the end of patrol. I figured something must have happened. I'd patrolled the entire castle, so I knew you weren't there."
"Does anybody else know I was gone?"
"No." His face turned impatient. "Look, do you want to go to the hospital wing or not?"
She tried getting up, her limbs still shaky and stiff. "They won't find anything wrong with me, Malfoy. I'm not going."
She bit her lip as she tried to stand, balancing her weight. Going to the hospital wing was just a waste of time, not to mention it would cause a big fuss. The Cruciatus curse left no mark, and she knew what was wrong with her. She was dehydrated and exhausted. That was it.
Before she knew it, Malfoy had wrapped one arm around her, steadying her posture. She was only mildly aware of how strong he must have been, as once he'd had a hold of her, she felt only a little of her weight resting on her legs. As he helped her out of the woods, she could smell him. He smelled like mint and smoky firewood and clean laundry, combined.
It was still so early in the morning. The sun was barely up, and the sky was slowly lightening. From the distance she could still spy the firelight from the windows of the castle.
"You're a magnet for trouble, Granger," he drawled, but there was a telltale edge to his voice. "Tell me, is masochism a House trait?"
She ignored his question. "I don't look for trouble."
"Let me guess," he said, his voice dripping with sarcasm, "trouble finds you."
She didn't answer him for a while, because for once, she couldn't dispute her bad luck. Ever since her mum passed away she seemed to be on a streak of injury and harm. She bit her lip, trying to decide whether to tell Malfoy that Pansy had used the Cruciatus curse on her. Though she doubted that would surprise him. Half of all Slytherin House was associated with the Dark Lord through their parents' alleged allegiance. They had all probably learned the Dark curses the day they learned how to walk.
"It looks to be that way," she finally said to him.
He kept his face straight ahead, and they both succumbed into silence as they neared the castle. As they walked she kept getting flashbacks from last night. Pansy standing in front of her, the look of hesitation and uncertainty on both Millicent's and Lacey's face. Hermione looked down at her robes. Her wand, which had been in Pansy's robes, was back inside her pocket. How had that happened? She couldn't recall anytime last night when Pansy had given her back her wand.
Just as she was about to ask him, they were already in the castle. She stopped them.
"You can let go," she said to him. "I'll be fine from here."
This was half-true; she felt like she had regained a little bit of her strength. Enough to walk up to her room, anyway.
He let her go, and she swayed a little before she steadied herself. She tried not to notice when he watched her carefully.
"Thanks, for going out to find me," she said, her voice barely above a mutter. She wasn't exactly used to saying thanks to someone who blindly hated her for her blood.
"I'm Head Boy," he said to her, his voice a little sharp. "It'd be a little suspect if I sweetly slumbered while you were out tied to a tree, don't you think?"
His response made her feel better – annoyed, which was more familiar than feeling grateful to him. She had mixed feelings about it. Of course he had gone to look for her because, if everybody had woken up the next morning with her missing, his position as Head Boy would be under major scrutiny. That would mean his reputation and the certain privileges that came with being Head Boy would be at stake. He was right. He was absolutely right.
She shifted her weight between her feet. "Right." She paused, hesitant. "How's your mum?"
"Worse," he said, before he promptly turned away and began walking down the hall, towards the dungeon. Hermione, bristling just a little at his cold brush off, slowly made her way up to her room.
oooo
It wasn't like Granger to be late. He hated that he knew that, but it was true. He spent twenty long minutes waiting for her at the end of patrol, and when there was no sign of her, he knew something was amiss. Begrudgingly, he asked the portraits if they'd seen her, and they'd told her that they had last seen her heading towards the Astronomy Tower. He checked there, but there was nothing.
As he looked for her, with a dark feeling at the pit of his stomach, he couldn't help but feel irritated with her. First with her slip-up at Hogsmeade, and now with disappearing while out on patrol. What was she aiming at, exactly? Had her mum's death sent her over the edge, and now she was on some kind of dramatic kick? It was definitely unlike her. Granger wasn't one of those girls. In fact, he was certain that she would blend into the walls of this dull place if her hand wasn't shooting up every three seconds and she wasn't arrogantly spouting some kind of unnecessary information.
He found himself heading to the Slytherin dungeons before it all clicked in his head. He barked the password to the portrait, and as he walked in, he found Parkinson and her two minions frantically huddled together in the common room. When they saw him, they silenced instantly and exchanged a look of apprehension.
"What are you still doing up?" he snapped at them. "You three should be in bed."
Without saying a word, the two began heading towards the girls' dormitories. Pansy sent him a haughty look before following.
"Not you, Parkinson."
She froze in her step, her back turned to him. In front of her, Millicent and Lacey glanced at her nervously, but disappeared up the stairs.
He walked closer to her, and she slowly turned around. She looked at him with hard eyes, but he could sense a little fear in her, the way her eyes flickered elsewhere when he came too close.
He counted two wands on her. One in her robes pocket, and another in her hand. He disarmed her, and she flinched as her wand clattered across the room.
"What do you want, Draco?" she asked him. Her voice shook.
"Where were you?" he asked her.
"I left my book in the Potions classroom. Millicent and Lacey went to retrieve it with me."
Pansy was a terrible liar – something she'd inherited from her parents, or so Lucius had told him. "So where's the book?"
She stiffened. Her hands clenched by her side. "It wasn't there. I must've left it somewhere else."
He slid the wand out of her front pocket, and she watched him do it, a sour look dawning on her face. He recognized the wand immediately. He'd had it pointed in his face too many times not to, and he realized this with certain derision.
"Where is she?" he asked her, lowly.
"Someplace real comfortable," she spat. "You'd be real proud, Draco."
Suddenly, she found the head of his wand digging into the side of her throat. She sucked in a breath, her eyes widened in shock.
"I don't think I have to tell you what trouble your stupidity has caused our House lately, Parkinson. Tell me where she is. I won't ask you again."
Her eyes narrowed at him with spite. "In the Forbidden Forest, tied up."
"Good girl," he said, before he stepped back. His wand left a telltale mark on the sensitive skin of her throat, and she rubbed it, annoyed.
"You think I'm a disgrace to Slytherin House?" she called after him, as he exited the dungeons. "Take a good look at yourself, Head Boy Draco – saving Mudbloods at every chance you get! That's a new low, even for a Malfoy!"
He tried to ignore Pansy's words, even when they followed him all the way out to the woods.
He found her in exactly the manner Pansy described: bound to a tree in the middle of the woods, her head bowed in unconsciousness, her brown hair disheveled. He knew better than to believe that Pansy had just knocked her out and then tied her to a tree. If that was true, Granger would have looked better than this. He'd seen how sinister Pansy could get with people she genuinely did not like, and Granger had humiliated her in front of the entire school.
Her body fell forwards with a simple unbinding charm, her face landing on the forest floor. He rolled her over and tried sitting her up, brushing her hair out of her face. Her skin was pale and dirty, there were dark, purple bruises underneath her eyes, and her bottom lip was crusted with dried blood.
"Jesus, Granger," he whispered to himself. And he thought he'd known bad luck, looking at his own father.
He took her by the shoulders and tried to shake her awake.
"Granger, can you hear me? Open your eyes."
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