Chapter 6: It's darkest just before the dawn
I rolled over onto my side and blinked a few times, the sun streaming in through a break in my bed hangings. I sat up and stretched, swinging my legs off the side of my bed. Sunlight was coming in both windows and the Black Lake in the distance was sparkling. I got up and poured myself some water from the jug by the window and sat down on the window ledge. Cold October air was creeping in through cracks on the side and the water I was drinking was freezing but it didn't bother me. I sipped my water contently and gazed out the window feeling more centered than I have all yea-
SLAM.
I jumped in alarm and sloshed water down my front. Parvati woke with a start and both our heads snapped up towards the door. Lavender came stumbling in, carrying her shoes and tie and her shirt mostly unbuttoned. Her hair was frizzy and her make-up up was messy but she was positively glowing.
"Best. Night. Ever," she said slowly, grinning from ear to ear. Parvati let out and excited squeal and clapped her hands together. I smiled politely and raised my cup to her in salute. She traipsed over to her wardrobe and started pulling out fresh robes with Parvati trailing behind her demanding details. Not wanting to hear any of that whatsoever, I grabbed my bathroom bag and my clothes for the day and booked it to the bathroom. I locked the door behind me and sat down on the edge of the bath scowling. The funny thing is though I'm more annoyed that my best friend did it than my crush did it with someone else.
I waited until Parvati and Lavender had left to come out of the bathroom. I had just taken one of the longest showers of my life to eat up time and to my great surprise my hair was lying flatter than usual. After a pretty wretched morning the miracle that is flatter hair maybe is a good sign for the rest of the day. I grabbed my rucksack off the ground, already packed for a day of ancient runes, transfiguration and double care of magical creatures, and left the dormitory. I got to the bottom of the girls stairs at the same time that Harry got to the bottom of the boy's. We grinned at each other and set off towards the portrait hole together.
"Fancy meeting you here!" he said sarcastically, holding open the portrait for me.
"Fancy that," I responded, jumping down the ledge and setting off for breakfast with Harry at my side. Harry grinned again but his smile quickly faltered. He seemed to be having some sort of internal debate about something he didn't know if he should mention to me. And I already knew exactly what it was he was thinking about.
"So did you hear?" he finally asked quietly, not looking at me.
"Yup," I growled, popping the P.
"So... How are you doing?"
"Great."
"Do you want to talk about it?"
"Not even a little bit." He nodded and didn't talk about it again.
We got to the Great Hall and Harry immediately chose seats at one end of the table; Ron and Lavender were keeping busy at the other end. I gratefully sat down across from him and started buttering some toast. I whipped out my ancient runes textbook to revise for a test I had this morning and was just propping it up against a jug of pumpkin juice when Ginny came up behind Harry.
"Potions, Herbology AND double Divination!" she exclaimed sitting down beside Harry. "It would be better to just kill myself, wouldn't it?" I nodded sympathetically while trying to hide my laughter at Harry's expression. Saying he was happy about Ginny sitting next to him was the understatement of the year.
"So, Captain," Ginny went on, stealing a piece of bacon off Harry's plate. "Practice tonight? Same time?"
"There is a practice but it's going to be earlier today," answered Harry who was blushing slightly at her. "Slytherin booked the pitch for the later time." I looked up, suddenly interested. Malfoy and I have tutoring tonight at 8 so why would he, as the captain, book the pitch then? I scowled, grumbling at him under my breath.
"Anyways," said Ginny, bringing my back to reality. "I'd better go, I don't want Slughorn to yell at me if I'm late." Alarmed, I looked at my watch and realized that there was 9 minutes till class. Harry looked distinctly put out at the thought of Ginny leaving but I could be wrong; he had stuffed so much food in his mouth in shock that class was starting so soon that he could just be choking. I was pretty funny seeing his eyes bug out and half a piece of toast sticking out of his mouth. Ginny stood up and stretched.
"Bye, Hermione," she said. "See you tonight, Captain!" She swooped down and ripped off the half a piece of toast poking out from Harry's mouth. She walked away, happily munching on her toast, with Harry staring after her. He swallowed his food (with great difficulty) and turned to me, leaning forward seriously.
"What did that all mean!" he demanded, looking kind of crazy. "Was that flirting or was that just me?"
"No, Harry," I said somewhat sarcastically. "It wasn't just you. She's obviously madly in love with you and wants nothing more than to just rip off your clothes and shag you right here." He smiled sarcastically yet rather mischievously too.
"Excellent." I rolled my eyes and scooped up my ancient runes book and got to my feet.
"See you in transfiguration," I told Harry hastily as I could see Ron and Lavender making their way towards Harry so they could all go to divination together. He nodded in understanding and I took off quickly for ancient runes.
I joined the queue of people going up the main staircase to get to the second floor. At the top I veered off to the right to continue up the stairs to get to the third floor where the ancient runes wing in. I got to the bottom of the stairs and was met with a terrifying sight. Six huge, seventh year Slytherin boys were coming down, taking up the entire passage. In their lead was Steven Moore, a stocky prick who hates anyone that isn't a pure-blood. I kept my head down and stayed to the far right to try and get pass. He recognized me. He veered to his left and stopped on the stair above me, glaring down at me.
"Out of the way, mudblood," he spat, shoving me with two massive hands.
It was more my clumsiness then his force that caused me to stumble back and fall down the stairs. I landed hard on my back and heard the gasp from the 20 or so people who were in the vicinity. Before I could even move, someone broke out of the group of people who had been behind me and charged at Moore. The person was wearing a Slytherin tie and for a second I thought he was going to go join Moore's gang. Instead the guy lunged at Moore and his fist collided with the side of Moore's face. Moore let out a painful cry and aimed a punch at the assailant. The assailant dodged it and jumped to a higher step. He turned around and punched Moore again and I got my first clear look at his face. It was Draco Malfoy. Except it didn't look like the Draco I knew; the usual smug, cool and collected Draco was replaced an angry, determined Draco who was punching Steven Moore repeatedly in the face.
Once I realized it was Draco I thought that he had no shot against a guy of Moore's size. Draco was tall, skinny and lanky while Moore was huge, buff and terrifying. And Moore probably would have won the fight... if he could ever catch Draco. With their wands forgotten in their pockets, Moore just blundered forward trying to grab Draco. Draco was much too fast for him and just kept smoothly dodging it and aiming punch after punch at Moore. It only stopped when the boys were suddenly thrown against opposite walls by an invisible force which also kept them from jumping at each other again. I turned my head, still lying on the floor, and watched as McGonagall stormed through the sea of people which had grown considerably since I last looked. McGonagall strode forward, wand out and nostrils flaring, and roughly grabbed both boys by their collars.
"My office, now," she snarled, pushing them through the sea people. She looked over her shoulder at the group of people (failing to see me on the floor) and barked; "Class started 5 minutes ago!" She whipped back around and marched the boys down the hall and out of sight.
Now that the excitement was over, the group of onlookers was finally breaking up and people were walking to their classes. All of them had their heads bent together, whispering frantically about what had just happened. I slowly got to my feet (no one offered to help me up) and brushed off my skirt. Other than a small scrape on the palm of my hand and a very sore arse, I was perfectly fine. I grabbed my bag off of the ground and was about to head off to ancient runes when something caught my eye. Now that most of the people were gone I could see a cluster of books lying discarded on the ground. I bent down next to Standard Book of Spell Grade 6 and opened the cover. Small, curvy writing stated that the book belonged to one Draco Malfoy. I checked the rest of them and found out that they all belonged to him. I stacked them up and thought that the only scenario for them being on the ground was that Draco had thrown them to the ground when he saw Moore shove me. A surge of gratitude rushed through me and I actually started to cry.It was just aftershock of what had just happened and the adrenaline wearing off but I still felt like giving the pale Slytherin a hug. I gathered up his books and rushed off to ancient runes, hastily wiping my face on my sleeve.
I was over 10 minutes late for class but I was able to slip in unnoticed. A small group of students were telling Professor Bathsheda about the events that had just transpired and the reason for being late. My name was not mentioned.
When the class had finally settled down, Professor Bathsheda handed out our tests to the resounding groan from everyone.
"Just because there was a fight and all of you were late is no reason not to learn," she told us scathingly, her anger causing her hovering charm to get overexcited and our test papers smacking us all in the face. I used one of Draco's books (since when did I start calling him Draco?) to shield my face from the parchment until it settled down onto my desk. I took out my quill and wasn't even halfway done reading the first question when a silvery cat burst through the door. The patronus ran over to Professor Bathsheda and said something to her but I was too far away to hear it. When the patronus finally melted into nothingness, Professor Bathsheda walked slowly towards me. I already knew what was coming from whose patronus that was.
"Professor McGonagall wants to see you, Hermione," she said curtly once she had reached my table. "You may finish your test tomorrow." I nodded gravely and gathered up my things. Ignoring the inquiring looks of every person in the class I ducked my head and left the class as fast as I could.
I hurried up to McGonagall's office, struggling under the extra weight of Draco's books, and knocked once on her door.
"Come in," said a voice from inside. I cautiously opened the door and sighed in relief when I realized that Moore was already gone. Draco and McGonagall were both staring at me with unreadable expressions. I closed the door behind me and crossed the room in the two long strides. I stacked Draco's books in a pile beside him on the floor and sat down in the other chair.
"You, of course, know why you're here," began McGonagall seriously. I nodded but kept quiet. "Mr Moore and Mr Malfoy were involved in an altercation that seems to revolve around you." I winced slightly at how bad that sounds in words. "They have both told me their sides of the story but I would like to hear yours." I took a deep breath and told her everything; from the insult to the shove to the typically quiet guy sitting next to me coming out of nowhere to save me. When I finished, McGonagall just nodded and didn't say anything to me. Instead she turned to Draco.
"That's exactly what happened?" she questioned, surveying him carefully through her spectacles.
"Yes, that's what happened," answered Draco calmly in a smooth, almost melodic voice. I noticed that he didn't even have even a scratch on him. I almost smiled.
"Very well, you may go," said McGonagall, leaning back in her chair signalling that the discussion was closed. "But I will be taking ten points from Slytherin for fighting." Draco nodded and gathered up his books that I had brought him from the floor. He shot me a small smile in thanks and walked towards the door. "Mr Malfoy," McGonagall added as an afterthought. Draco turned back, one foot out the door. "It should be fifty points but as you were coming to the aid of someone in need, and a Gryffindor that is, I am making an exception." Draco gave her a small smile and stepped out of the room, closing the door behind him and leaving me alone with McGonagall.
"So," said McGonagall, clasping her hands together and scrutinizing me carefully. Hereeee it comes. "How are your tutoring sessions going?"
"Wh-what?" I stammered, my eyebrows furrowing in disbelief.
"Mr Malfoy has shown much improvement in my class and obviously they must be going well if he is willing to engage someone in a fight to protect you," said McGonagall with a knowing glint in her eyes. I had no idea where she was going with this. Instead of elaborating McGonagall checked her desk clock and sighed. "The bell is about to ring signalling the end of first period so you might as well head to your second class. And since that is with me you are not to be late."
"Yes, Professor," I said smiling uncomfortably. I got up from my seat and crossed the room to the door.
"Miss Granger," McGonagall called after me, similar to what she had done to Draco. I paused in the doorway and turned to face her. She had a faint smile on her face. "I seem to recall a certain event in your second year when it was Mr Malfoy who called you a foul name. It's quite curious isn't it?" I didn't know what to say so I just nodded again and backed out of the room. I closed the door behind me and started down the hall towards my transfiguration classroom, remember the time four years ago when Draco was the one who had called me a mudblood. Funny, now he's the one saving me.
A/N Sorry I didn't upload on the weekend; I had a basketball tournament and a girl on my team dislocated her elbow so things were pretty fuckin' crazy. I'll upload more this week but it won't be every day. My chapters are getting longer so they take longer to write. Oh, I'm changing a few things up if you noticed. The trio (and Draco) still take care of magical creatures and Harry and Ron are still taking Divination. There's stuff that I want to happen that involves those things so they have to be in there. Okay, thanks for commenting and reading! Stay tuned for more awesome Dramione! Love, Kate