A/N: You reviewers are amazing and way too generous:) I'm very very sorry about how predictable this story is turning out to be...maybe I'll throw a twist in soon. Or maybe I'll not, and you can just have fun reading it and knowing what's going to happen. Or maybe...hmm...well, you'll just have to read on and see, won't you? Enjoy, R&R!

Never Lose Strength

Chapter 10

"Where's Hermione?" Harry asked, seeing Ginny approaching their tree.

"Coming," Ginny assured him. "She just had to fix herself up. Ron, can I talk to you? Over here?" She gestured to her side and began to walk away from the tree, so they wouldn't be overheard.

Harry wondered what Ginny was going to tell Ron: she looked kind of sad, but in a way, relieved, too. It was hard to read with her, even if Harry knew her so well.

They began to walk, Ron's red head almost a whole foot above Ginny's. Harry had to look away to keep from laughing: he bit his lip and turned back to the rest of the group.

"Finding something funny, Harry?" Lavender asked, catching him.

Harry just shrugged and sat down.

"Did you hear?" Parvati suddenly asked. "The Halloween Ball is on the thirtieth of October—I've only just heard, and Dumbledore's still got to make his announcement."

Harry shook his head, disbelieving. Was it possible to keep anything from those girls?

Angylin looked confused. "Halloween Ball?"

"There's balls—dances—during the school year," Lavender explained. "There's the Halloween one, and then the Yule Ball, which is for Christmas."

"Oh? And are these dress-up?"

"Yes!" Parvati and Lavender exclaimed at the same time. Parvati elaborated. "For Halloween, you can obviously dress up in a costume, but the Yule Ball is fully formal attire. Boys ask girls on both occasions."

Angylin frowned. "I see."

"Problem?" Seamus raised an eyebrow at her.

"No." Angylin shrugged. "I'm just not a huge fan of dressing up."

"Tomboy?" Dean smirked.

Angylin growled at him, and the whole group laughed.

Hermione came running across the lawn, then, and even from the distance Harry could tell that she was still worn out: her skin looked sickeningly pale, her cheeks and lips were too thin, her robes hung, billowing, about her frail body. It still nagged at him: what could be the reason for everything? Something had happened, and it had made her completely crack. He had tried to guess a few times, but nothing he thought of made sense.

"Hermione!" Lavender yelled, getting to her feet and running to meet her in a hug. "I've missed you. You left the party early, no?"

Hermione nodded. "I didn't feel good."

Lavender clucked her tongue sympathetically. "You're going to the Halloween Ball, though, right?"

Hermione looked surprised. Of course she did. No one knew about the balls before Lavender and Parvati. "When's that?"

"October the thirtieth." Lavender sounded like she was reading aloud from an invitation.

"Hmm…." Hermione smiled slightly. "I'll have to see."

"'Mione!" Lavender whined. "You have to come!"

Hermione shrugged noncommittally. "I'll let you know."

Lavender let out a huge puff. "Fine. If you must."

Besides that, Harry thought it was a pretty nice, enjoyable afternoon. Everyone got along fine, and Ron wasn't too visibly sulking; while it was, of course, obvious, because Ron being himself wasn't too good at hiding his feelings, he didn't ruin the mood too often. And Harry could pretty much figure out what had ruined his day by the way he seated himself as far away from Ginny and Hermione as possible.

It was his problem, though. He wanted to move in too fast, and he got his consequence. Besides that, though, Harry enjoyed himself, indeed.

--

"Did you hear?" Pansy cried out. "The Halloween Ball! Draco, will you go with me?"

Draco rolled his eyes and looked down at his dinner plate. "Dunno."

Pansy's eyes grew wide. "Is there someone else?" She gasped, her voice almost at a shriek.

"For Merlin's sake, Pansy, keep it down!" He snapped at her. He wasn't in a good mood, and the way the girl made it so obvious that she was an airhead annoyed him to no end. "You'll wake the dead with a voice like that."

Pansy sniffed and turned to talk to someone else, leaving Draco to Zabini.

"Why're you not going with Parkinson?" Blaise asked him. "Is there someone else?"

Draco sighed. Blaise Zabini was probably his closest friend, but since he didn't really understand his crazy, mixed up feelings himself, he didn't want to tell anyone else just yet. "No. I'm not sure if I'll go, though."

"Not go? To the Halloween Ball?"

"That's what I said, isn't it?" Draco shot back. He was tired of this. They all just needed to leave him alone—even Blaise.

He shrugged and turned to talk to someone else, too.

Good. Quiet. Crabbe and Goyle were caught up in their own thug conversation, which left Draco to his thoughts: which was when he realized he didn't want to be left to his thoughts. He frantically looked around for someone to talk to, but everyone was already otherwise engaged.

For the second time, he got up and left in the middle of the meal; this time, however, not so many people noticed until he was already at the doors. But when he turned around, he caught someone's eyes: one girl, in particular. He tried not to stay there, tried to move on or move through, but his eyes were locked, and he couldn't go until she looked away.

He couldn't take it. He ripped his gaze away, and darted through the doors.

--

He was looking right at me.

Hermione felt her heart stop, skitter, stop again, and then restart. What was up with Malfoy? He was scaring her, that's what it was. Every time she walked through a dark corridor to get to a class, she found herself looking over her shoulder, afraid that he would be there, staring at her with his steely eyes. He was creeping her out. She couldn't figure out what he wanted, either.

She needed to get this over with. It was causing too much stress on her, and she figured if she just handled it now, it would probably wear her down less than if the whole glancing-over-the-shoulder, living-in-constant-fear thing kept up.

"I feel kind of dizzy," Hermione lied. "I think I'm going to go up to bed."

Ginny nodded sympathetically. "Okay. Do you want me to come—"

"No, no," Hermione quickly said. "I'll be fine."

"Are you sure? I can take you up, too. Or if you want dinner later—" Harry began. Hermione couldn't help but feel her heart warm at his words. He was such a good friend; he had noticed that she had barely touched her dinner.

"I can get something later at the kitchens," Hermione assured him. "Or there still is the kitchen in my dorm."

"Right, right." Harry nodded. "Well, night, then."

"Night, everyone." Hermione nodded and left the Great Hall.

Outside, everything seemed sinister. She resented the shadows, hated the way they danced in the muted light. Her heart jumped every time she rounded a corner, but every time, the corridor was empty.

She was beginning to lose hope as she roamed through as many hallways as she could, feeling her hair standing at the back of her neck. What if he hadn't meant for her to follow? What if he had gone back to the Great Hall?

The portrait moved aside as soon as she said her password, and she crawled through into the Heads' common room. Empty. Pained, and suddenly tired, she began to walk up the steps towards her room. She was almost certain she had seen him telling her to come—but maybe she was just delusional. She would have to ask Madame Pomfrey; maybe it was an aftereffect of her disease or whatever.

"Wait."

The word cut through the thick air and reached Hermione's ears. It felt like it was at a thousand decibels, screaming into her ear, after such long moments of silence. She halted, halfway up the steps, and began to walk slowly back down.

There he was. The only light in the common room was by fireplace, and he looked so eerie, half of him lit, half of him in shadow. The flames danced across his face, and his eyes were so steely, so unfamiliar. They scared her, so badly.

But she couldn't let her fear of him show. When she spoke, she tried to make her words as hard and clear and unwavering as possible. Her throat clenched, but she fought to unclench it, and finally her words came out, just as she had intended them: "What do you want from me, Malfoy?"

Strange emotions crossed over Malfoy's eyes. She might have been able to read them, had it been Harry, or Ron, but this was on totally neutral ground, and she knew nothing of Malfoy, nor did she really want to know him. He was still just as foreign to her as he had always been.

He crossed the room in such long, quick strides that Hermione barely had time to react before he was standing less than a foot away. Closer, now…Hermione could only stand, stare, rooted to the spot, as he came closer and closer. She felt the fear rising in her throat until she could almost taste it, salty sweet, telling her to go, run, anywhere, anywhere but here.

And then, still before she could react, something else happened. At first, she couldn't comprehend; not when Malfoy's head was bending down, or when his eyes were looking intently into hers, or not even when his surprisingly soft lips pressed onto hers. She could only watch, helpless, as if this were happening to someone else, and not her.

The fire that exploded from within her scared her more than Malfoy had. It burst through every one of her senses and nearly blinded her, simmering and steaming through her veins. And then her vision cleared, even when the feeling didn't, and she pushed away from Malfoy, using his chest as leverage; as soon as they disconnected, the feeling vanished.

Everything about this was alien to her, and it was scaring the hell out of her.

So she turned and ran.

Hermione Granger was not a runner, but in this case, she had no idea what else to do. Her mind couldn't even process what was happening: it was so far-fetched, so unreal, that it didn't, couldn't be happening.

So she got up to her room and shut the door and leaned against it, breathing hard, trying to calm herself down. Breathe in, breathe out.

Why do you do this to me, Malfoy? She wanted to ask. She glanced in the mirror, and saw that her face was even whiter than before; her freckles stood out more prominently, and her eyes were wide with shock.

She fell onto her bed as a new realization struck.