Chapter Nine

Face Off

Dear Harry and Ron,

Venificus Trellum is very… interesting.

No, that's not the word. Hermione thought in anguish. More like hectic, insanely hard, and confusing! But she didn't want them to be worried. They had already sent her two letters each and the last one joked about how she must not be replying because she was too busy with her fun new school to spend 2 seconds to scribble down "hey, what's new?" And if Hermione knew anything about boys, it was that they were most serious when they were joking.

So here she was, trying with all her might to tell her best friends in the world, exactly what she has done at this school without telling them exactly what she was doing.

Needless to say, she was having a bit of trouble.

Hermione contemplated telling them the truth, that Malfoy was somewhere in the castle screaming bloody murder for her, that she got a D on her last test and that her roommate couldn't help but poke into her mind and find out about the time Ron threw up slugs in second year, and that Crookshanks was missing!

Hermione sighed; lying seemed like the only option. She knew that if she told them the truth, Harry and Ron would go into the crazy "hero syndrome", as she liked to call it, and find some way to save her from whatever Malfoy was undoubtedly planning for revenge.

Determined to finish before dinner, she got to work.

"Shanks! Shanks! Here kitty, kitty, kitty!"

Peter was on the study table trying to get the cat off of the high bookshelf.

Draco, meanwhile just sat on his bed, overlooking the spectacle that Peter was making of himself.

"Here kitty, come to Peter!" Peter cooed to the cat for the hundredth time.

"Will you just stop that?" Draco asked irritably, "I am trying to study!"

"No, you're just staring at that bit of parchment on your desk and berating yourself for stupidly thinking you can just barge into the girl's dormitory without activating the wards."

"At least I am not talking with a cat!" Draco said angrily.

"You know what your problem is?" Peter asked. "You're way too stressed out about that girl, I mean, didn't you say you hated her with a passion?"

"I said I loathe her with a passion, there's a difference."

"Dully noted, so if there is so much hatred between you two, is there any reason for you to keep being at each other's neck? Why not let bygones be bygones?"

"Because the day I let her rest in peace is the day she dies a horribly slow and painful death!" Draco exclaimed heatedly.

"Um… Remind me to stay on you good side."

"Dully noted." Draco said. He stood and left the room, as he did, he passed the bookshelf where Peter was still trying to get the cat down. The moment Draco passed, the cat deftly jumped onto Draco's shoulder. Seemingly unperturbed about having a cat jump on him Draco left the room, leaving his roommate to gape.

Hermione hummed pleasantly. She finished her letter. It was informative and evasive all at the same time. It was perfect; all she had to do was send it.

She had just entered the corridor leading to the Owelry when she heard it.

Meow

Hermione froze. That was Crookshanks! She knew it was. She hurried up the stairs and quickly pushed the door to the Owelry open, and ran straight into somebody.

"Ouch!"

"Watch it!"

Hermione looked up from her position in the middle of the doorway and found herself looking straight up at Malfoy…and Crookshanks.

"Crookshanks!" Hermione cried out in surprise and fumbled to her feet.

"What did you call me?" Malfoy said annoyed.

"That is my cat!" Hermione yelled. Crookshanks recognized his owner and curled around Hermione's feet, purring contentedly.

"Crookshanks?" Draco said critically "For someone supposedly smart, you'd think you would name your cat something less idiotic. But then of coarse, what else would one expect from a pathetic mudblood?" Draco sneered.

"Pathetic? You should talk, ferret! Why aren't you at dinner anyways? To preoccupied playing with you magic wand?" Hermione said coolly. She then scooped Crookshanks into her arm protectively. She had missed his comforting weight.

Color flared into Draco's face, more from anger than embarrassment. "You stupid bitch. I don't think you got the message the first time."

"You mean when you tried to bleed me to death." Hermione snarled. She pushed past him and went into the Owelry, looking for a school bird to send her message.

"No, when I showed you that you are obviously no match for me." Draco said.

"That's what this is about then?" Hermione asked, disbelievingly. "I should've known. This is about proving yourself, isn't it? Are you that insecure?

"This is about saving the school from embarrassment!" Draco practically yelled, scaring a few owls around him to fly away.

"What the fuck are you talking about?" Hermione snapped, ignoring the flutter of wings around her. "You couldn't care less about Hogwarts!"

"That's where you're wrong. Unlike you my family has attended Hogwarts from the beginning. Unlike you, my family has donated so much to that school; it would go bankrupt without my family's financial aid! Who do you think is funding this bloody exchange program?"

Hermione was shocked; she was in a program funded by the Malfoys?

"The likes of you shouldn't be representing my school. You shouldn't even have been allowed to go there in the first place! But everyone's tolerant because you make top grades somehow! But what about now, Granger? What are you going to do now that your precious grades are below the very high expectations of this program? Obviously, your not as good as everyone thinks you are!

Hermione felt the cruel sting of his words behind her eyes. He hadn't made her cry since in a long time, but being so far from home, getting that failing grade, it was way too much. Soon Hermione's tears overflowed. She looked away from Malfoy quickly, feigning interest in a particularly beautiful owl nearby, hopping against hope that he hadn't noticed.

Then, she heard him. A quiet chuckle. Draco Malfoy was laughing at her. Hermione looked back at him. And saw what she had been seeing for years; Malfoy and his smug smirk, looking as if he owned the world and knew everything in it. He opened his mouth to say something. Something she already knew to be cruel, evil, and just the right thing to make her hate herself. And in that moment she hated Draco Malfoy so much, that she acted on pure instinct so that she could prevent him from making her feel like something worse than trash.

In a flash her hand was raised in a fist ready to make contact with his arrogant face. But he was quicker. Draco stopped her hand firmly; all the mirth disappeared from his eyes. She stared at him; shocked at how fast he moved.

"I was expecting that." He said, and before she could even think of what to do next, he cried out, "Expelliarmus!"

Hermione hurtled through the air, landing roughly against a bird cage a few feet away. She got to her feet without skipping a beat. "Stupefy!" Hermione cried

Draco barely ducked it; he was not expecting a hasty retaliation. Hermione smiled when she realized this. He hadn't expected her to fight back.

Hermione and Draco stood at the ends of their respective sides of the Owelry. The birds, sensing that there was going to be trouble, exited the tower or went to perch on higher grounds. They walked toward each other, wands by their sides and met in the middle. They saluted each other as they were taught to their second year and then turned their backs to each other, walking ten paces away from each other to take their position.

They stood for a second, staring at each other with looks of pure hate. Today they would settle their 6 year feud.

Meanwhile…

Tracy was showing Adrianna the library.

"That's the Ancient Runes section there; we are the only school with enough books to fill out a whole section on ancient runes." Tracy said to Adrianna, who was paying far too much attention to her nails than necessary. "Headmaster Morrissey has written a lot himself. He's studied ancient runes all his life, he made many important discoveries in the 70's about how the Romans used runes as a way of creating an image that wasn't really there, a hologram if you will-"

"Tracy! This is all really fascinating and all, but where's Hermione? She said she would meet us here. The way she was raving about wanting to get a head start on some homework assignment, you'd think she'd be here in a heart beat!"

Tracy frowned too. "You're right, it weird. She has a natural love for books, I can tell."

"Hey!" Adrianna said suddenly, "can't you just find her telepathically?" Adrianna looked exited. "One of the other telepathy students told me that they taught you how to do that in fifth year!"

"Well, we taught to do that only when necessary. It's not polite to go poking through people's minds unexpectedly." Tracy said.

Adriana looked at her skeptically. "Haven't you been all through Hermione's mind already? She's like an open book to you!"

"You have a point… that girl does have a problem trying to keep her mind shut… ok then, I'll do it" she then shut her eyes and had a very far off expression. She mumbled a couple of words under her breath and then snapped her eyes open suddenly. She looked at Adrianna in alarm.

"What? What is it?" Adrianna asked

"We need to get to Hermione now!" Tracy said urgently. Tracy led Adrianna hurriedly out of the library and back towards the dorm rooms, hoping that she wasn't too late to stop Hermione.

"Impedimenta!"

Hermione cried out as the spell hit her shoulder.

"Incendio!"

Draco's pants lit on fire, she used his temporary distraction to her advantage.

"Stupefy" she cried

Draco quickly dropped to his knees, dodging her spell. He managed to put the fire out while hurtling another spell at Hermione in the same motion.

Hermione wasn't expecting this; the spell hit her forcefully in the stomach and she was knocked off her feet. She moved quickly to get back up, but Draco had cast the leg-locking charm on her. Hermione faced him from her awkward position on the ground, wand at the ready. Her mind flashed back to first year when Malfoy had cast this very same charm on Neville. A spark of anger burst through her as she remembered the humiliation that it had caused him. Because of Malfoy; it was always because of Malfoy.

She waited until he had raised his wand and was starting to cast another spell when she quickly retaliated.

"Expelliarmus!"

Draco's wand flew out if his hand. He quickly went to retrieve it; giving Hermione a chance to cast the counter-curse on herself. She stood up, ready to face him again.

"Impedimenta!"

Draco yelled in surprise as the spell hit him squarely in the chest. Hermione heard a satisfying crack of his bones as he hit the hard stone wall. He tried to retaliate quickly but she noticed with shock that his left arm went limp as he tried to move it and his movements were sluggish. Hermione was just about to call out to him, to see if he was alright, but was taken aback when he straightened back up and looked positively determined as he raised his wand again.

"Relashio!" He yelled. Fiery sparks flew from his wand, flying across the room at Hermione. She quickly used the shielding charm, but the spell was too powerful. She felt most of the burns hit the side of her legs and waist.

Tears of pain flew into her eyes. More than that she felt angry at herself for feeling sympathy for the likes of Draco Malfoy; who didn't need to think twice to hurt her.

There was some kind of noise coming from the corridor. It was coming closer and closer. Under normal circumstances Hermione and Draco would both call off the duel; neither thought the other was worth a month's detention. But Hermione never quit when she had a goal. Her heart drummed in temptation. She didn't know if it was smart to use this next spell, but she didn't care, nothing seemed important any more. Nothing except permanently wiping off Malfoy's stupid smirk. Hermione smiled coldly and raised her wand resolutely,

"Recendy!"

A shot of silver light emitted from Hermione's wand in Draco's direction. Hermione smile of triumph faded soon, however; Malfoy had moved out of harms way at the last possible second, and the beautiful bird Hermione had noticed before was the one who was injured in the line of fire.

The bird that Hermione knew to be a rare snidget was engulfed in silver flames. The poor little bird tried to take flight, but could not escape the enchanted flames. The bird let out an ear piercing screech.

"What did you do it Granger?" Draco yelled over the noise.

Before Hermione could reply, the door to the Owelry opened and Tracy and Adrianna came bursting in.

"We're too late!" Tracy wailed despairingly. Her eyes went straight to the bird on the ground.

Adrianna reached for her wand in a flash, "aguamente!" she cried. Water emitted from her wand. But the flames did not cease.

"Hermione! Do you know what you just did?" Tracy asked worriedly. "Do you know whose falcon that is?"

"What? No! Why aren't the flames going out?" Hermione said in panic. The spell had been one of the experimental ones that Fred and George told her and Ginny about. She didn't know the full extent of its power.

"Agumente! Finite Incantatum! Aguamente!" Adrianna tried frantically to put the flames out. It seemed to die down but not by much.

Her frantic tones and the pined screeching of the bird added immense anxiety to Hermione's already building thought that she had done something worse than just injure a school bird.

"Tracy!" She yelled over the noise. "Whose bird is it?"

Tracy had replied to her but the bird's wailing drowned out the answer.

"What?" Hermione asked.

"Silencio!" Draco said. There was suddenly silence in the Owelry. The girls all looked at Draco who had been carefully examining his obviously broken arm.

"Hermione," Tracy said, quietly bringing Hermione's attention back to her, "That is Professor Morrissey's bird."

It took Hermione about a minute to remember that Professor Morrissey was the headmaster of Venificus Trellum.

Sorry for taking soooo long with this chapter, but I had to get it JUST right since it is a VERY important chapter! The next chapter is already halfway done and I can say that there will be a WHOLE LOT of trouble for Draco and Hermione! And a visit from everyone's favorite headmaster! (I don't mean Prof. Morrissey) please review ur input helps a lot more than u think!

And here is a lil info about Snidgets since it is going to be a very big part of the story:

Snidget

A small, spherical bird which can fly with amazing agility, changing speed and direction almost instantaneously. Its golden feathers and red, jewel-like eyes are so prized that at one time the snidget was hunted almost to extinction. The fact that a snidget became such an integral part of the game of Quidditch (and usually died when it was caught) didn't help matters either. The snidget became a protected species; there are now severe penalties for harming or even capturing one. Snidget reserves have been set up worldwide, and a magical device, the Golden Snitch, has replaced the live bird in Quidditch.

Fantastic Beasts and Where to find them