Disclaimer: The characters and setting within are not of my own creation, and I take no credit for them. No copyright breach has been intended.
Chapter 4 – A Few New Friends
The trio's long school cloaks picked up the moisture of the grass as they walked down through the grounds from Herbology back up to the castle. Their hems hung sodden about their ankles and their boots had a thick cover of mud along the sole. The storm had blown itself out at midday, and the sky was suddenly striking, bright, and warm. The heat coupled with the water on the grass to make the atmosphere humid.
"Strange weather," Ron remarked.
"Sure is," said Harry.
Hermione grinned. "It is weird, but wasn't the storm amazing?"
The other two rolled their eyes in commiseration. "For the hundredth time, yes. It was great, fantastic… stormy." intoned Ron.
"It was, wasn't it," she said with a self-satisfied smile as they walked though the arched entrance.
"Have a good lesson?" smirked a voice. In a single movement, all three of the friends whipped about to see Draco casually lounging against the stone wall behind them.
"What's it to you?" Ron asked with hostility. Harry's hand inched towards his wand.
Draco's eyes glittered as he looked past them to Hermione. "Granger?"
"I'll meet you guys upstairs," she said, her eyes glued to Draco's.
"What? Hermione- "
"I can take care of myself!" She said angrily. To their bewilderment she took Draco's proffered arm and followed him outside.
"What just happened?" she heard Ron ask, but she didn't catch Harry's reply.
"That was GREAT!" Hermione grinned. "Did you see their faces?"
"I don't think they could have looked more surprised if I was an ogre."
"To tell the truth, they probably DO think you're an ogre." He laughed appreciatively. "So, to what do I owe the honour?"
"I'd like to invite you to spend the night with me," he said quietly.
"Really? Okay!" Hermione said excitedly.
Draco groaned and shook his head. "You were supposed to be shocked and say no, and then I'd have explained the REAL plan, and then you would agree and feel silly about being shocked in the first place. I had the whole dialogue planned!"
"Okay…" Hermione said slowly.
"Well, go on then."
"Oh. Right." She put a look of fake horror on her face and said indignantly "No way!"
"Why not?" he said, clearly continuing with the planned dialogue. "A night stalking the corridors and the grounds unseen, uncovering the secrets of Hogwarts that come alive at night. We would have the school entirely to ourselves." He said seductively, then immediately changed his tone. "But, if you don't want to, I could always invite Pansy Parkinson."
"And this is the part where I say yes, right?"
Draco rolled his eyes. "Yes!"
"It sounds like fun. Do you have an invisibility cloak or do you want me to steal Harry's?"
"I have a much better idea. There's a chant in here that will make us look like ghosts. We will wander the grounds until nightfall, and beyond, if you like it cold. When we want to venture into the castle, we'll use the ghost spell and move around unnoticed."
"I like it. But what if the Bloody Baron or one of the other ghosts see us?"
"We'll just have to hope they don't."
"So when do we meet?"
"After dinner, like last time."
At dinner they may meaningful eye contact exactly 27 times (Ron was counting) and ate exactly nothing, waiting for an appropriate time to leave. When they rose together and walked out of the Great Hall and into the grounds, Harry and Ron followed carefully from a distance.
"Don't look now, but I think we have company," Draco said quietly.
Hermione rolled her eyes. "This is ridiculous. They act like I'm their little sister, like I need my big brothers to protect me." They kept walking, heading for the forbidden forest.
"Want to have some fun?"
"Definitely."
"Let me see the book then."
Hermione handed it over and watched with anticipation as Draco thumbed through, his eyes passing over each page hungrily as if he were devouring them as he had failed to devour his dinner. His hand hovered over a heavily illustrated page, and a slow smirk spread across his face.
"Seeing as they're trying so hard to look after you, let's give them some new friends to focus on. Some new friends with fangs and a tail, to be more specific." Hermione looked from Draco down to the chant he was proposing. It was a chant to call snakes. "I bet there's plenty of snakes in the Forbidden Forest," he said.
Hermione smiled up at him, "let's start chanting and find out."
Harry and Ron were keeping to the tree line, trying hard not to be spotted. They could hear a murmur of voices from Draco and Hermione, but they couldn't make out the words. With stealthy steps they tried to sneak closer.
Draco and Hermione chanted, letting the words well up from within them and spill out from their hands. The power spread between them and spiralled outwards along the ground, like an invisible mist of magic.
From the forest floors, behind logs and in small holes, the snakes lifted up their heads and sampled the air with forked tongues. They caught a scent, a delicious, intoxicating smell pulsing from beyond the trees. Without hesitation they moved towards the smell.
Draco heard a slither and broke off mid-chant. "Time to stop," he said to Hermione, and wordlessly she took his hand and they began to walk quickly away from the forest.
"Where do you think they're going?" Harry asked Ron in a whisper.
"I don't know! Out for an evening stroll?" Ron replied angrily.
"Take it easy, Ron."
"Take it easy?! Not only is she prancing about with Malfoy the Nob, which I could possibly handle, but she's also being really rude and acting bizarre. Since when does Hermione skive off class?"
"I know, I know. Hey, can you hear that?"
"Hear what?"
"That whispering."
"Is it centaurs? Or Acromantula?" Ron looked extremely concerned. "I can't hear anything."
"Hold on, stop walking." Harry put his head to the side, listening closely. "I don't like this, get your wand out."
Ron caught a glimpse of motion as he closed his fingers around his wand. "Um, Harry…"
"Yeah Ron, I see them."
Thousands of snakes were pouring from the tree line. Ron yelped as one of them slithered right across his feet, while Harry hissed soothing. None of them slowed their pace as they moved towards a central point on the grass and became a tangle of serpents, each body writhing above another. It had begun with sounds like a slightly threatening gust of wind through trees, but now the hissing was overwhelmingly loud like several swarms of bees or a buzz saw.
"What are they saying?"
"I don't know, they're all talking at once. I can only pick up odd words like 'coming,' and 'hungry.'"
"But why are they all here?" Ron asked, with an increasingly shrill voice.
"I don't know, but that's right where Draco and Hermione were before they changed direction. It's like they called them."
"Do you think Draco's a parseltongue?"
"No, I think we would have noticed. And even if he was, I didn't here him talking to snakes, so how could the snakes have heard?"
"Can we get back to the castle?"
"I don't know," Harry said softly, looking at the snakes which were still coming forth from the forest and covering the ground. "I don't think we should move just now. I think they might attack, they seem edgy. I think we'd best just wait it out until we have a clear path."
"Great," said Ron faintly. "Stuck in the grounds surrounded by edgy snakes, it's getting very dark, it's cold, and we didn't even eat properly because we had to watch our best friend making eyes at Draco-bleeding-Malfoy!"
"It could be worse," said Harry pragmatically.
"Could it?"
"Sure, they could have been spiders."
A/N – I am so sorry I have been slow updating! I had the whole story finished, and then decided I needed to add in another chapter and it just took me forever. The rest will be updated this week, enjoy! As always, Review. I love comments and advice.