Chapter 9

Draco Malfoy honestly wasn't expecting to run into Hermione Granger, and he couldn't say it made for a very pleasant surprise. One minute, he's walking along, and everything is fine. Then he turned a corner and "Oof!" ran smack into a mass of bushy brown hair. "Would you mind--" Draco began, cutting himself off quickly when he saw her face. She looked like she had just escaped from somewhere, and that the people holding her hostage were none too nice.

"Merlin, Hermione," Draco said, his use of her fisrt name showing his concern, "what happened to you?"

"I was just taken hostage in the private common room," Hermione replied, more than a little shocked at Draco showing such open concern. Then she reminded herself that he had been like this for a few months. Ever since his father died, Draco had gone through some rather drastic changes, his newfound niceness being only the tip of the iceberg. Shaking her head to clear it, Hermione said, "It was Ron and that Edgecombe girl who did it. They held me there, and then when I woke up, Harry came over to...talk to me. Well, actually, he didn't talk to me; he more threatened me and was just plain cold. I honestly thought he had become demented in some way, the way he talked to me. He's never been like that before. Him and Ron, as well. Ron's acting just like him."

"So report them," Draco suggested, only to have Hermione shake her head.

"Who would believe me?" she asked him, watching his face as a look of comprehension passed over it. "The Hogwarts Golden Boy, and the Golden Boy's Sidekick, the Chess Grandmaster, whatever title you want to give him, taking the Head Girl hostage? In her own private quarters?"

"I guess you have a point," Draco unwillingly conceded. "But something needs to be done. And something will get done. Come on," he said, turning and taking her arm.

As they walked away, Hermione suddenly realized that they had completely forgotten about the people chasing her. "Malfoy..." she whispered. "Malfoy...Malfoy...Malfoy...Draco!" That got his attention. "They were chasing me, you know," Hermione said matter-of-factly, as if she were discussing the weather.

"I won't worry about them if you don't," Draco replied just as conversationally. No more words were passed, because suddenly Draco was levitated by his ankles. Hermione heard laughter, but when she turned to the source, she couldn't see anything. That blasted Cloak, she thought, then pulled out her wand and thought, Liberacorpus! Draco started to plummet towards the floor, but Hermione muttered, "Locomotor Malfoy!" and managed to catch him less than three inches above the ground.

"Thanks, Granger," Draco said as he managed to right himself and stand on his own two feet.

"What, you've finished calling me Hermione already?" she asked him teasingly.

"Don't push your luck...Hermione," Draco said, purposely saying her first name just to see if he could make her smile. And she did. Her face lit up with a huge grin that seemed infectious; before long, Draco was grinning just as big as she was, and feeling like a complete idiot. "Now come on, Hermione," he said, eliciting a giggle from Hermione. "Let's get away from these heathens."

"But Draco, where are we going?" Hermione asked, confused. Nowhere in the castle was safe, not from the new and (not necessarily) improved Harry Potter and Ron Weasley.

"We're going to the Slytherin common room," Draco said simply, ignoring Hermione's protests.

"Come on Hermione," he said, using his most persuasive voice. "Think about it. Edgecombe's a Ravenclaw, Potter and Weasley and Creevey are Gryffindors, and anyone else--"

"How did you know Colin was involved?" Hermione cut him off.

"Err...well...I honestly didn't want to have to have you discover it this way, but Blaise and I have been conducting a little investigation into the recent...activities of Potter and his posse. We don't like what they're doing, and we're going to try to put a stop to whatever it is befoe it gets too far."

"Good luck with that," Hermione said. She wasn't saying it to be mean; she was simply stating a fact. Draco and Blaise would be very hard pressed to stop Harry and his "posse" indeed. Of course, if they had higher numbers of people who were willing to unseat Harry--that was the term they all used; Harry seemed to have become a tyrant, dictator, self-declared ruler, whatever you want to call it, and whenever he was talked about, all anyone seemed to be able to talk about was rumors of various efforts to unseat him--then there shouldn't be too much of a problem. Hermione told Draco this.

"I have realized that Hermione, and so has Blaise," Draco replied, knowing she wasn't being unsupportive or pessimistic, simply honest. "Which is why we have also, in addition to investigating Potter, been recruiting people to what we call the APO."

"APO?" Hermione asked, interested.

"You'll see when we get to the meeting place," Draco replied mysteriously, taking her arm and leading her towards the Slytherin common room. There were no protests; Hermione was completely consumed by her curiosity about this project of Draco's and Blaise's.

They finally got to the common room, but instead of opening the way in, Draco took Hermione off to the left of the door, towards what looked like a blank stretch of stone wall. Hermione didn't say anything; everyone knew, and Hermione knew better than most, the number of secrets Hogwarts held. So she simply waited. Finally, after looking around, Draco put his fists on the wall and began pounding it. Hermione was perplexed, but she held her tongue. It took her a while (Draco pounded on those stones for a long time), but it eventually occured to her that he wasn't just pounding on the wall. Each stone lit up a different color when Draco tapped it, making a pattern of sorts. It's like a secret combination, or a password, or a key, she thought. Eventually, the pounding on the wall ceased, and one of the stones jutted out from the wall. Hermione moved forward to grab it, but Draco held her arm. He gave her a look that clearly said, 'Don't touch anything just yet.' Hermione nodded and stepped back, watching as Draco flicked, yes, flicked the stone in the wall. He also muttered something, but Hermione didn't quite catch it. He stepped back, and this time, instead of just one stone, a large group of stones began to jut out of the wall. Just when they were about to fall out, however, all the stones shifted sideways, making an opening into what looked like a dark, cavernous space. Before Hermione could voice her misgivings about the place, however, Draco took her arm again, and led her inside without a backward glance at the corridor outside.