Note from Snitch: Well, as promised, chapter ten will give us some action! All this difficult talking was bound to come to a physical conflict at some point. The chapter is long, I know, but there was just a lot to tell about this event. Luckily our Hermione now has a friend to help her deal with the problems she has. Or has she?

Chapter ten
Stuck in a web

After finishing her pumpkin ice, one of her favourite desserts, Hermione hurried out of the Great Hall. When she had passed through the big doors which sealed the Hall, she didn't head for the Gryffindor tower. Instead, she walked down into darker corridors, which lead to the Slytherin common room. Just before getting there, she took a turning on her right, into a barely lit hall. A smile appeared on her face when she saw a glimmer of blonde hair in a dark corner. As she reached to kiss Draco, the sound of footsteps made her freeze.

"Hermione?" said a very familiar voice.

"Ron?", Hermione asked in return, turning pale, "what are you doing here?"

"I wanted to give you your book, you left it on the table… But then you went here. Why on earth would you go here?" Ron asked, sounding puzzled.

"I… It's…" Hermione started, feeling Draco moving as he tried to get out of the place next to her.

"Who's there?" asked Ron, looking at the corner where he had heard the swishing of a cloak. Then, just as Hermione he saw a glance of blonde hair, so blonde it could hardly be anybody else than…

"Draco!" said Ron, leaving Malfoy no choice but to come out of hiding, covering his body in dim candlelight.

"Yes," he said, sounding nastier than Hermione had heard him in a long time, "how unfortunate that I should now meet people as poor as you so near to my common room". Insulting seemed to come to him naturally.

"Like… like it's your common room," Ron stuttered, only to say something. His ears turned red. Yet he regained his posture, realising how easy Malfoy had unsettled him.

"And anyway, what were you doing here, waiting for Hermione?" he said, glad that his voice had decided to act normal again.

Hermione's heart now seemed to be bouncing up and down all of her chest and head, as she tried to think of a way, an excuse… She had come here herself, why would she have gone here if Draco and all the Slytherins in general were her enemies… Scenario's of blackmail and things like that shot through her… But any moment now Draco would say something, if only he would use his head and not aggravate the problem…

"Come to save your mudblood friend, have you, Weasley, Draco laughed at Ron, "well, our business is none of your business."

Hermione couldn't help but feeling uneasy at the fact the Draco could still be as mean as he had been before, that he would still call her a mudblood with such ease… But it was just an act, just a way of deceiving Ron, she comforted herself. And she had to think, think! What could their business possibly be?

"Hermione, what's happening here?" Ron asked as he turned to her, both angry and confused. Then all the bouncing and shooting thoughts and ideas inside Hermione, conjoined in a click:

"Well, Malfoy here, has stolen my Defence against the Dark Arts essay about Counter-curses!" she said, trying to sound angry and not too triumphant about her finding. Draco looked at her in surprise for a moment, but quickly worked to look mean and snide again, attempting to go along with Hermione, performing the play he had performed with her for many years.

"Yeah, why put in all the work if some mudblood leaves hers lying around!"

"Lying around! Lying around in my schoolbag when I was practicing a spell in class!"

"Ah, how sad. You'll have to write a new one!"

"No way! Give it to me now, or I'll tell –"

"You'll tell who? Like Snape is going to believe what you're saying when I say it isn't true!" Draco laughed. "And it's his business, because it's his class and essay!"

Hermione felt a happy jolt inside her, Draco had guessed exactly where she had wanted to go with the argument. She felt like an actress on stage, improvising on the spot, with a big audience watching her every movement and waiting anxiously for the direction in which she would now steer the conversation. Yet she didn't have to do the latter now, as the audience itself had left its chairs and now climbed on stage:

"Give it back to her, Malfoy!" Ron said, redder than ever and shaking with anger.

"Or what?" said Draco, looking at Ron with amusement glittering in his eyes.

"Well, there's two of us and only one of you!" said Ron, and Hermione blushed, but luckily Ron only looked at Draco, who was now laughing.

"Are you going to eat slugs again to scare me?"

Ron felt the memory slime down his throat once more and raised his wand.

"Ron, don't!" Hermione said. Things were about to get out of hand, badly out of hand.

"He won't! Aranea!" exclaimed Draco as he took his wand out of his robes and pointed it at Ron. A glistening, grey bulb came out of the wand and sped towards Ron, branching as it went, turning into a web as big as Hagrid. Yet Ron already had his wand at the ready and yelled a spell which he had practiced in his fifth year in Dumbledore's Army.

"Reverto!". The web seemed to bounce on an invisible globe around Ron. It headed back to Malfoy, who obviously had not expected any real danger from Ron and was taken by surprise. The sticky, grey threads closed around all of his body and head and tightened, making him look like rolled meat. The tightening continued and made Draco's skin go very red and causing him trouble with breathing. "Inflammo," he uttered with the last breath he had left, making the web glow and burn away, leaving red lines al over his skin. Hermione stood frozen, shocked at the bubbling burning marks. However, Ron took the moment to come up with a new spell, which had brought him luck in battle before.

"Wingardium Leviosa!" he said as he swayed his wand and made Malfoy soar up the hall and bump his head against the stone ceiling. Draco screamed in pain, but followed the scream with a repetition of the last word he had just spoken: "Inflammo!". A burning jet shot towards Ron and set fire to his red hair. Draco fell to the floor now that Ron's spell had been broken. Scrambling to his feet he spoke once more, though this time he sounded as though he was in a lot of pain.

"Matches your hair nicely, don't you think," he said, jesting as always, but still gasping for breath every few seconds.

Hermione unfroze again and took her own wand out: "Aqua fluo!" she said and water from her wand extinguished the fire on Ron's head. Immediately after this she yelled "Expelliarmus!", making the two wands of the boys fly out of their hands. This had gone way too far, both of them had severe burnings. Hermione thought this was the end of it, but Ron and Draco didn't seem to agree with her and went for each other, fighting with their now empty hands. Ron hit Draco in the face and after that Draco stumped Ron in the stomach, adding bruises and wounds to their burns. Hermione tried to think of a spell to part them, but she couldn't think of one and tried to get between the two.

"Stop it! Stop it! That's enough!" she screamed, her hands attempting to separate them, pulling their shoulders. Eventually both boys fell to the floor, still looking very angry, but exhausted and in pain too. "That's enough…" Hermione said one last time, now very tired herself too, "let's go to madam Pomfrey…". She helped Ron to get up and looked over his shoulder to Draco. 'Can't help you right now' she mimed with her lips, feeling very sorry about that because Draco was looking even worse than Ron.

"We'll tell someone to come and get you," she said, feeling that was something safe to say, it was only human to do so. Ron made an objecting noise but said nothing and Draco nodded. Then Hermione walked to the hospital wing, slowly and supporting Ron.

On their way there, Hermione and Ron past Snape, who of course did not pass them without addressing them.

"And what would you two be doing here, in the halls leading to the Slytherin common room, Weasley and Granger?" he asked suspiciously and then looked at Ron more closely. "What's up with you, Weasley? Had a fight, have you? Twenty points from Gryffindor." Normally, Hermione would have felt angry, but now she was only thinking about how Draco was laying on the ground…

"Yes," she admitted, "and someone else is wounded too. Draco lays in the last corridor to the right near the Slytherin common room," she said, looking Snape in the eyes. Snape seemed to notice that there was more to these words than Hermione had wanted to make him hear. He looked at her, surprised with this, but then realised that his favourite pupil was laying somewhere, wounded.

"I will deal with this appropriately later," he said, with one last distrusting look, and then hurried down the hall, to Draco.

"Phew", Ron said, "we got off easy…".

"I think there will be a lot more to this…" Hermione said. It had felt like Snape had looked straight into her head when they had looked at each other. Her tiredness had been gone at once and great unease had crept over her. But for the moment, her first concern was that both Ron and Draco were to get to madam Pomfrey. They had both fought for her: a classical scene in which two men duelled for a woman. Not that they had realised that. Still, for both the fight had been to defend their love. Hermione was glad when arriving at the hospital wing stopped her contemplations.

"Oh, what have you done, mister Weasley" said madam Pomfrey as she scanned Ron with her eyes, but it didn't seem like she was waiting for an answer, "burns, bruises, torched hair, blood all over you… here, come", she escorted him to a bed, "you lie down here. Would you be as nice as to get mister Weasley his pyjamas, miss Granger?"

"Oh yes, of course… I'll see you later Ron," Hermione said and she left the room. Walking out she almost bumped into Draco and Snape. She and Draco exchanged a look, but then Hermione realised Snape was there and that he had obviously noticed the moment. Snape grabbed Draco tighter at his shoulder, at which Draco squirmed because he was burnt there, and hissed at Draco.

"We will speak later."

"Now, now, Severus, please be careful with my patients, he looks quite bad enough as it is," said madam Pomfrey and she guided Draco to a bed. Hermione used the moment to hurry out of Snape's sight.

Half an hour later, Hermione returned with two pairs of pyjamas, she didn't know for how long Ron would be required to stay there, and some chocolate frogs she had left: Ron could probably use some cheering up. When she entered the hospital wing, she saw Ron in a bed, a long figure with black hair on the white sheets. He already looked a lot better now that madam Pomfrey had been busy with him. The blood from his wounds had been mopped up and the burns covered with a purple paste.

"Hi Ron! How are you?" she asked him.

"Fine, much better now. Though it still hurts a lot," Ron added, taking on what he probably considered as a heroic look on his face. But it probably did really hurt a lot. The duel had looked painful.

"I bet it does… But madam Pomfrey will have you all right in no time", she smiled at him and Ron joined her in doing so. "I've brought you some pyjamas and here, a few chocolate frogs. Or is your lip too painful?". Hermione looked at Ron's swollen lip.

"Not too painful for chocolate frogs," laughed Ron. "Hey, Ginny!" he said as he turned his head to the entrance of the room. Hermione looked over her shoulder. "Hi Gin!"

"Hi you two! Oh Ron, you look terrible! I heard from Dean he'd seen you going to the hospital wing! What happened?" Ginny's face had turned from happy to worried throughout what she had said. Hermione's face turned worried too, what would Ginny tell Ron when she heard what had happened?

"That guy over there happened," grumbled Ron, nodding in to a far corner of the hospital wing. Hermione looked too and saw Draco laying there, covered in the same purple paste.

"But that's Draco! Did you fight?" Ginny asked, already with some distrust in her voice, but Ron didn't notice it.

"Yeah. The scum was talking to Hermione, he had stolen her essay! I mean, he's stupid, but it's not like he can't write one himself," and as Ron told this, already he got angry again, sitting up straighter in his bed and flexing his muscles. Hermione felt a blush appear on her cheeks and her eyes briefly met those of Ginny. Of course Ginny guessed what had happened.

"And then he started insulting her and me again! Then he cast a spell at me but it bounced on my counter spell", Ron laughed, "got him all right, that one did. Then I bumped his head against the ceiling, he deserved that! Still, he did put my hair on fire…"

"I extinguished it," Hermione said quickly, to show Ginny she did not help Draco.

"Well, I'm just glad nothing really serious happened to you," Ginny said after a moment of silence.

"So am I," said Hermione, relieved that Ginny had not betrayed her. That was at least one thing that had gone right today…