A/N- Man, I had so many different titles for this chapter. I just couldn't decide on one!
First it was 'Preparing the Portrait'
Second was, 'Ginny Weasley Is a Blood Traitor, Hermione Granger Is a Mudblood'
Third was, 'Blood, Sweat and Tears.'
Then we came to 'Twenty-Three Days In Ten Minutes'

"Right." She said as she looked around at her peers, as they, once again, were standing around the square canvas, and discussing the portrait. "Okay-so. This is quite complicated, so try to keep up; I don't particularly want to go over this again."

"How generous of you Patil." He said sarcastically as he rolled his eyes and crossed his arms.

"No one asked your opinion Death-"

"Padma!" Hermione warned through gritted teeth, as she looked pointedly towards the Ravenclaw. "We can't afford to have another argument like yesterday. We need to get this done, okay. And Malfoy, I'd prefer it if you stopped riling everyone up. It would make everyone's lives easier."

"And I'd prefer it if I could get the last two hours of my life back after I had to sit through that complete Muggle rubbish."

"You're not the only one." Blaise muttered underneath his breath. Hermione shot him a hard glare, turned back to Padma and told her to continue.

"Alright, so. We all just watched the Wizard of Oz which is the theme of our painting." Padma continued as if she hadn't been interrupted, but there was still some poorly masked anger in her voice.

As soon as everyone had arrived back from breakfast that morning, they came across Padma, Hermione, Susan and Hannah all putting the finishing Charms on the Muggle DVD player. Once they were done, Lavender excitedly ran down the stairs with the Wizard of Oz disc and put it in. Five minutes into the film, the DVD player let loose a puff of smoke and stopped working, but another couple of minutes later, the player was fixed and they watched the film the whole way through. Hermione and Lavender were basically acting as the cinema attendants to the disappointment of everyone else, and shrilled at people when they made a witty comment or so much as laughed. However, Hermione and Lavender were just being strict hypocrites and whispered to each other the whole way through it- even squealing at some parts. Most people, by the end of the film, were just as in love with the Wizard of Oz as Hermione and Lavender were, but others- such as Draco and Blaise - found it relatively uninteresting.

"Well, when I say 'we all' I mean everyone except Susan, who fell asleep on my shoulder half way through it." Susan looked highly embarrassed; whether it was because all the eyes in the room were on her, or because she was genuinely embarrassed about falling asleep during the film, no one was quite sure.

Two days ago, once everyone had come back from their classes, Draco had started to experiment with transferring his anger into other people. Of course, he actually had to be angry to be able to do that; so, naturally, he began to think of Potter, his own certain predicament with the female Weasley, and once he was angry enough, he transferred it into Blaise. Blaise would then start shouting at Draco; he would get angry and would then pass his anger into someone else. By the time everyone in the common room was just about ready to start killing each other, Draco left to escape their wrath. It was only when he went back into the common room half an hour later, did Blaise inform him (after ranting about how annoying he was, putting his anger into him) that supposedly Ron and Lavender had broken up during it. For a moment, Draco thought that it might've been because Hermione was shouting about how she loved Ron, that the two decided to end it, but that was only when he realised that there was a distinct absence of Hermione. Since the transferring of anger had gone so brilliantly for Draco, he had begun to wonder whether he'd be able to transfer other irritating emotions into people, even though the books mentioned no such thing. It was then, when he was dying of boredom during the film and had just found himself almost falling asleep, that he decided that he would try passing his boredom into someone else, because transferring anger was easy enough. All he had to do was touch someone, focus on all his anger, and imagine it passing into the other person and- BAM! It was done. So, when he looked to his left, he saw that Susan was seated as far away from him as possible, because, let's face it. Who wants to sit next to the big, bad, evil Death Eater? Stretching out him arm as if he was yawing, Draco placed a finger to her back- so gently so that she didn't notice - and focused on transferring all his boredom into her. Luckily and amazingly (because no books had mentioned it), Draco managed to pass it all into Susan, and obviously the small girl couldn't handle all the boredom and promptly fell asleep on Padma's shoulder.

"Anyway, we are focusing on the twister scene because that's what we're painting. Obviously. I am now about to explain how exactly you make a moving portrait, so all of you need to listen. Okay. Well, when we were in the library, we found a book and apparently, we need unicorn's blood. So, um, Neville, if you could make a detour to Hagrid's cabin on your way to Herbology and ask if there was any way that he could get unicorn blood for us?" Neville nodded his head.

"Unicorn blood? What is the purpose for unicorn blood?" Ron asked.

"Oh, it's going to be put in a potion that Malfoy is going to be making for us. It'll be used once it's finished. As a varnish."

"Wait a minute! Since when did I agree to make a potion for you mud-" Blaise elbowed him hard in the rib cage to stop him completing the word, and suffering from another pain attack. That, however, didn't stop him from muttering 'Blood' under his breath and clenching his teeth together to stop himself from crying out in pain, as Hermione understood what she'd just been called. His chest was rising rapidly, but he still remembered his powers during his agony and hoped that torturous pain was another thing that he could pass into someone else. Before Blaise noticed just what he was doing, Draco clamped his hand onto his shoulder in a vice grip as he tackled through the pain. Second, by second, Draco felt the pain slowly dissipating and saw Blaise's face gradually being contorted more and more by the pain being passed into him. Unfortunately, there was only so much pain that Draco could transfer as it was meant to condition him not to hurt his Mate, so suddenly, the release of pain abruptly stopped. It was still there, but it wasn't as bad as it would've been if Blaise hadn't taken just a bit less than half of it.

Hermione gave them both confused and worried looks, as their expressions immediately began to change, but cautiously spoke to them as she, and now everyone else, watched them. "Well, what else as you going to do in terms of helping make this portrait Malfoy? I suppose you're also quite brilliant at potions," She added through gritted teeth as if it pained her to say something like that to him.

'Granger doesn't know the bloody meaning of pain.' Draco thought, as he painfully managed a smirk. "Didn't know you thought so highly of me Granger." He croaked. "Fine, I'll do it. Now, if you excuse me, I think I'm going to go up to my room. I'm sure you won't miss me." He turned and began to walk back towards the staircase. He heard mutters from the other Eighth Years, but they were just background noise. All he was focusing on was the beating of his heart and the roaring blood in his ears. He barely noticed the light footsteps coming towards him, but when the thin, nimble fingers touched his upper arm, he whirled around with his eyes blazing. The small touch sent a feeling of being electrocuted with 1000 volts up each of their arms. Of course, Hermione didn't faint from their touch because of the Charms set up around the common room, but she stumbled back from the shock and stared at her hand in horror, as if it had murdered someone. "Get your filthy hands off me!" Draco growled, although there was an undercurrent of panic in his voice. He had snapped without thinking about what he was saying, and he soon felt himself dropping back against the wall as the pain over took him again, worse than before. His teeth bit his tongue so hard, to stop himself from crying out, that his mouth became filled with blood. The panic in his gut was clear now.

But, who wouldn't be panicked when the unwanted truth had been shown once again? He didn't want her to faint. If he had it his way, she'd never touch him, he'd never touch her and he'd be able to die without knowing for sure that it was her. That was fine for him. It wasn't as if it was definitely Hermione, although he was in a deep state of denial where the only glimmer of hope that it wasn't her was beginning to blur. It wasn't as if he could ignore the electricity of her touch- he certainly never felt it when Ginny had touched him on the train. He couldn't ignore the fact, now that it had happened three times, that he got pain whenever it was her that he was insulting. He also couldn't ignore the surprising fact that Hermione hadn't passed out from the touch. 'Ah,' Draco remembered. 'The Charms prevent this kind of magic.' However, that didn't stop him from wondering that, if Hermione was truly his Mate, would she still pass out if he touched her outside the common room because she hadn't the first time? Or, would something else happen?

Sixteen. Sixteen days he'd lost today- two weeks in the space of five minutes. The reality that he was dying had only just begun to sink in; and he was dying fast if he kept it up as he was. "Merlin, I wish you knew how much pain you put me in." Draco confessed, not really thinking about what he was saying through the blinding pain.

"How much pain I put you in?" Hermione asked incredulously as she brought her hand quickly down by her side. All other conversations and comments had stopped, and everyone was now waiting expectantly to see what would happen between the two opposites- Blaise more than anyone else was. He could almost see what would happen, and what he could see was not good. Not good at all. "You're one to talk! What about all the bloody pain you've put me in all these years. And anyway, I haven't put you in-"

With a shaky hand, Draco reached out to try grab Hermione's wrist. He barely had time to think of the consequences, or listen to Blaise as his voice cut through the tense silence ("Draco don't-") before his fingers wrapped around her wrist and pulled her towards him sitting on the floor, propped up against the wall. A shrill scream poured out of Hermione's mouth a filled the whole common room and immediately everyone was on edge.

"Hermione!" Harry shouted, as he and Ron ran towards her. They barely made it one step, before they realised that blood was trickling down Draco's chin, pouring out of his mouth as his screams joined Hermiones. Everyone froze from their positions to go over and save Hermione. Whatever was happening, they decided, it was happening to the both of them. Whatever was making them hurt, it was going to torture them into insanity. Tears leaked out of her eyes, as a new wave of agony was sent through her, ten times worse than the first time and a thousand times worse than her torture at Malfoy Manor. Her tears rolled down her cheeks and mixed with the droplets of Draco's blood on the floor, making it give a quiet hiss. Hermione though, had a large pain threshold, and although corners of her vision was becoming black, she could withstand the pain- whatever it was that was causing it- for a while longer. Only after a few seconds, the pain became so much that it made her start to gag, but she suppressed it as she kept screaming her throat raw. "Hermione! Hermione what's wrong? What's happening?" Her screams only reminded Harry and Ron of her torture at Malfoy Manor in the hands of Bellatrix- but this time, it was with Bellatrix's nephew that her screams were being reawakened.

"Malfoy," Hermione screeched before choking on a sob. "Malfoy! Make it stop! Malfoy make it stop, please."

The thing was, he would've let go as soon as he was punished for hurting her physically this time by passing his pain into her, but he found that he couldn't. He wanted to. Merlin did he want to- but he couldn't. A part of him wanted her to feel some pain for hurting him in the same ways that he hurt her. The principle of being a Veela was extremely unfair. Why should he- someone who'd been unfortunately paired with a muggle-born, which he'd been told to hate all his life- be the one being punished. What about her? For when she slapped him across the face, when she and her friends had managed to get his Father thrown in Azkaban, when she beat him in every test every year when he was meant to be superior to his kind. Most importantly, she deserved to be punished for being born. Why couldn't lovely, Gryffindor Princess, Hermione Granger have been born into a Pureblood family at the very least? The House wasn't what mattered most- no, what mattered most was her blood and the fact that he had to now throw away his old beliefs and past to start anew with her. Why couldn't he have been paired off with anyone else?

Oh, yes. Hermione Granger deserved to be punished just as much as Draco did.

Then again, where were his protective instincts? If she were truly his, then surely he'd stop as soon as the first scream escaped her mouth because he'd never want to hurt his Mate. Maybe a part of his Veela was just as sadistic as his Wizard was.

"This-This is the pain you put me in Granger. This is the pain." He rasped, and with great strength, Draco pried his hands off her wrist and all at once, the screaming stopped, only being replaced by loud whimpers and sobs. As soon as he let go, Draco's eyes closed and bile rose up in his throat, only to be pushed back down as he took calming breaths. Hermione, however, didn't take the pain as well as Draco seemed to have, rolled onto the floor from her crouching position and curled up into a balled as she continued to cry. Beads of sweat were gathering at the top of their foreheads and trickling down their faces, joining with the blood and tears on the floor with another little fizz. A few seconds passed after everything stopped, and everyone was still cautiously watching them in case something else might happen. When they were sure they weren't, everyone rushed over to Hermione, leaving Draco to sit in unloved peace. They couldn't get as close to Hermione as they felt was appropriate at that moment, because as soon as Lavender laid a hand on her shaking shoulder, Hermione hoarsely cried for no one to touch her. Well, that only happened for a couple of seconds as Draco was dragged out of the common room by his sleeve by a fuming Blaise. Once completely out of the common room, Draco no longer stumbled, breathed heavily or felt like a weight was weighing him down. He stood up straight and all the bleeding in his mouth stopped as he felt all the muscles in his tongue repair itself. Slowly, the after effects of the pain vanished.

"What was that Malfoy?" Blaise yelled as he pushed Draco into the wall. "What. Was. That."

"She deserved it." Draco spat as he easily threw Blaise's arms off him and moved away from the wall. "She doesn't know the meaning of pain like I do."

Draco's eyes suddenly snapped shut again, and a long forgotten memory swam to the front of his head, like it had all those days ago at the start of Eighth Year.

Smack! The sound rang in the silence of what Draco recognised to be his Father's office in Malfoy Manor. This memory wasn't in black and white, as the last one mostly was. This one was in complete colour.
"Draco, was that girl you were talking with in the park a Muggle? Yes or no." His Father asked. This had to be the only time in his life where he had heard his Father say something in such a threatening way, but he also looked rather conflicted about it. A red handprint covered the side of the young Draco Malfoy's face. This memory must've been older than the last one, as the Draco there looked younger, with a much rounder face, that the other one.

"Yes Father she was." Draco sniffed and wiped away the few tears on his face. He kept his eyes to the floor, not able to look at the disappointed face of his Father.

"Malfoys don't stare at the ground Draco." Father said as he yanked his head up to stare him in the eye, by his pale blond hair. "We don't cry either, so stop your sniffling. And we stand up straight," Here Lucius jabbed him in the back with his cane to make him stand taller. "Now, you have no reason to be ashamed if you have nothing to be ashamed for. I want you to answer some questions for me truthfully, and when I say truthfully, I mean it." Draco nodded, still staring him in the eye. "How did you meet her?"

In all honesty, Draco wasn't really sure. He'd just entered the park with his Mother after she had given in to his pestering, and, although he'd never been in a park before- especially a Muggle one - and had only quick glimpses of this one he felt as if he knew exactly where to go. Something- he didn't know what -felt as if it was pulling him towards the slide and all Draco did was allow the force to robotically move his feet in that direction. Then, at the end of the queue to get on the slide, was a girl standing there. To his astonishment, it was the same girl that had appeared in his last flashback, but unfortunately, she was still in black and white. In his little 5-year-old mind, he knew that he Father wouldn't believe him; more importantly would probably think he's crazy or lying and Draco didn't want to think of the consequences for that. However, he reasoned, it was the truth, so he might as well say it. "I'm not really sure Father. Some kind of pull just brought me to her. What does that mean? Does it mean she's special? It felt like it when we spoke."

A look of utter astonishment and disbelief crossed Lucius's features before the memory faded.

"-going to do now?" Blaise finished. It was clear from the confusion on Draco's face that he hadn't been listening to what Blaise had just said. He let out a dramatic sigh. "Everyone saw that Draco. Questions are going to be asked, and I have no idea how to answer them and they're not even my problems! What are you going to do now?"

"I don't know." Draco shrugged, feeling strangely calm again. He stuck his hands in his trouser pockets and began to walk away. "Act like it never happened perhaps?"

"I'll tell you this Malfoy-no one else is going to act as if it never happened! Especially not Granger. She could've gone insane from that experience and ended up being in St Mungos. There's still a possibility that she will. Where are you going anyway? Malfoy!"

"I'm going for a walk. There are some things that I need to think about and to do. Someone I need to talk to. Things I need to practice." He said quietly as he turned to look at Blaise. "Alone. Alone Zabini. Well, for now at least. I'll be needing to talk to you when I get back from my travels. Tell Longbottom that he needn't bother with asking for unicorn blood, I'll do it myself. Try getting Granger to Madame Pomfrey as well, or at the very least, calming her down, making sure she's still sane and she rests in her room for the day. The pain can take quite a toll on someone. And, even with maybe two of us missing, get everyone to start the picture. Our days are running out," Here Draco laughed dryly as he thought of himself. "And we haven't even started. Force them if you have to. See you in class-maybe." Without waiting for any sort of response from Blaise, Draco quickened his pace and headed towards the open grounds.

A/N-God, I'm in such a dramatic mood this week. Oh, and sorry it's short.

OK, so I'm sorry that everyone's reactions to Hermione and Draco's torture were so bad. I sort of like to redeem myself of that flaw by saying that, they were so shocked, confused and emotionally pained by the screams themselves, they didn't really know what to do. I mean, what would you do if two people suddenly started screaming at the top of their lungs, crying and maybe had some blood coming out their mouth- but you didn't know what was happening to them because there was no obvious problem? Because you didn't know what was happening or what was wrong, you wouldn't be able to help them. Even if it was only helping them a little bit.

Review please! 3