Chapter 10
"Wow," Hermione said as she followed Draco into the darkened room. At the moment, she wasn't quite capable of saying anything else. They had just walked out of a cold, drafty, barren stone corridor into a warm, welcoming, cozy, well-furnished room.
The walls were, for some unknown reason, red with golden flecks in them that sparkled whenever the light from the huge iron fireplace hit them, so it was not unlike walking into a room full of twinkling stars. It was a circular room, so there were no corners for anything to lurk in. All around the room were pictures of various people, creatures, and animals. Here there was a portrait of the previous headmaster, Professor Dumbledore; there was a portrait of Sir Cadogan; over there was a picture of a rearing centaur; over there was a painting depicting a giant going up against a sea of black, with jets of red and green shooting out of various places in the black mass.
"What, exactly, is this place?" Hermione asked Draco, who shortly replied, "Room of Requirement," before walking off toward someone Hermione couldn't identify. It didn't take long for her to find out who it was, however. Draco, who had been suddenly cold and distant from the moment they had walked into the room, had tapped the other guy on the shoulder. The guy was sitting in a chair that was facing the wall and someone or something, so Hermione couldn't see who was in the chair until he stood up and turned around, revealing himself to be Blaise.
"Hermione!" Blaise said jovially upon catching sight of her. He seemed happy, a little too happy, but Hermione didn't care to find out why at the moment. She had caught a glimpse of something behind Blaise. Or someone. Most likely the latter. Hermione's eyes narrowed slightly, but she managed to cover it with a smile and respond lightly, "Hello Blaise. Tell me, where exactly are we?"
"Well if you want to get...technical," Blaise replied, slurring "technical" so that it came out sounding like "techhhnichhhal", "we're underneath the lake. However, the room we're standing in is none other than the Room of Requirement," he finished grandly, sweeping his hand around the room in a dramatic fashion. He was probably drunk; he and Draco had a reputation for getting plastered whenever they felt like it. Hermione had expected that, being in positions of authority, they would clean up their act a little. But then again, since when had Blaise or Draco ever measured up to Hermione's expectations?
"The Room of Requirement? Isn't that on the seventh floor?" Hermione asked.
"That's what we always thought, too," Blaise responded, swaying. Before Draco, Hermione, or who looked like Hannah Abbott hiding back there could catch him, he had fallen to the ground, hard. Hermione couldn't help but giggle, but she straightened up quickly at a look from Draco, and hurried across the room to help Blaise to one of the plush chintz armchairs that dotted the room. "He needs an anti-intoxication or detoxification potion," Hermione said, and Draco gave her a pointed look. Sighing to acknowledge that she had gotten the hint, Hermione stood up and thought, I need a way to get to the hospital wing. Almost immediately, a door showed up underneath Sir Cadogan's portrait. Ignoring the knight's jeers and yells, Hermione walked out of the door and ended up in the corridor outside the entrance to the hospital wing.
She walked in quietly, intending to poke around in Madam Pomfrey's stores, but it was not to be so. Somehow, Pomfrey heard her and was bustling out in a second, asking, "Are you all right, Miss Granger?"
"Yes, I'm fine, Madam Pomfrey," Hermione began as Pomfrey began to check her anyway. It really got on one's nerves, but Hermione held her temper and her tongue in check, waiting for Pomfrey to finish. When she finally did and had deduced for herself that there was indeed nothing wrong with Hermione, she asked, "If you don't need me, then why are you here?"
"I need a...detoxification potion," Hermione said, ignoring Madam Pomfrey's ludicrous look. Pomfrey asked, "Is it Mister Zabini again?" Hermione nodded, amazed that Pomfrey would be able to guess something like that. Thankfully, Pomfrey didn't say anything more, but searched her stores and found and gave to Hermione the odd potion that constantly switched between a shade or hot pink and orange. Hermione thanked her and walked out of the hospital wing. She looked at the spot where she had entered the corridor and thought, I need to get back to the room you hide. A door showed up, Hermione walked through it, and found herself back in the Room of Requirement version 2.0. She wasn't quite sure why she thought of it that way; maybe it was because she had thought that the only way to get to the Room of Requirement was through the seventh floor entrance. Shrugging it off in her mind, Hermione walked over to where Draco sat still next to Blaise, who also hadn't moved, not that Hermione expected him to. Handing the potion to Draco, she said, "Hannah, you should probably go now." The girl who had been hiding in the shadows started, and Hermione saw that it had not been Hannah Abbott, but Parvati Patil. And her reaction caused someone else to show up. Padma. Hermione didn't even begin to think about what that had meant.
"I'm sorry, ladies," Draco said dismissively and in a way that implied he wasn't sorry at all, "but you should probably leave. You won't want to be here when he wakes up." The twins nodded and, Disillusioning themselves, got up and walked out of the room.
Hermione watched Draco administer the potion to Blaise and wondered how long it would take for the potion to take effect.
Ohh...my head, Blaise thought as he finally came back to consciousness. He had a nasty headache, but it didn't seem to be similar to the hangover headaches he was so well acquainted with. It was then that he realized that he was still in the Room of Requirement. And Draco wasn't there. Neither was Hermione. Blaise hurriedly got up and got dressed, trying not to vomit from his awful migraine.
Eventually, he had made himself presentable and he started toward the door. On the way there, however, his eye fell upon a chair that looked so comfortable...maybe it wouldn't hurt to rest his eyes, maybe it would help his migraine...He was out by five minutes after he had sat down.
That was how Hermione and Draco found him when they got back from classes and various duties they had to perform. Hermione was in rather a bad mood; Peeves had been making trouble in the Astronomy Tower. This time, however, instead of simply smearing ink on the eyepieces of the telescopes, Peeves had deemed it necessary to swivel the telescopes as many times as he could as fast as they could spin, simply to see how long it would take for the telescopes to break. Hermione had had her work cut out for her; if Draco hadn't shown up when he did, things would have gotten really ugly in the Astronomy Tower.
"Ahh...So he's better...somewhat," Hermione observed, taking in his change of clothes. "Too bad that detox potion has rendered him almost completely immobile for at least two days. She walked over, ignoring Draco's mutterings about "don't want to have to be Head Boy for another day" and smoothed Blaise's hair out of his face. She couldn't explain where this oddly maternal instinct had come from. She just wanted to make sure he didn't wake up to a face full of hair. As she cleared it away, Blaise moaned. "Huuurts..." she thought she heard. Smiling, Hermione said, "Yes, detox potions tend to do that to you. You know, if you wouldn't get hammered so often, you wouldn't have this problem." But her admonitions came on deaf ears; Blaise was already out cold again. Sighing, Hermione walked over to one of the armchairs by the fireplace to reflect on her day.
Peeves had been bad enough. Then she had had the misfortune to run across Ron. Ron...she thought longingly before giving herself a mental shake. Ron was evil now. As had been proven by his behavior toward her today. Upon seeing her, Ron had called out, "Look at that, the Mudblood progidy resurfaces!" and laughed at her hurt expression. But she had exacted her revenge; she had sent her canaries on him like she had two years before. The expression of pain and outrage on Ron's made her feel much better. However, her anger at him and Harry as well was always bubbling just below the surface. She was going to get them one day. She only hoped that she wouldn't get them too good.
"Hermione...Hermione...Granger!" Draco shouted.
"Wha...what?" she replied.
"Are you deaf? Zabini's been asking for you ever since you walked away," Draco said, sounding supremely uninterested. But Hermione could detect something there. She didn't know what it was, but she knew it was there. Getting up and walking over to Blaise, Hermione asked gently, "What is it?"
"S...sorry...you...had to see...that," Blaise managed to get out. Hermione smiled falsely. How dare he attempt to apologize...Not only did I see him drunk, he was hiding the Patil twins! He's infuriating. And yet..."That's all right, Blaise," she said sweetly. "You'll just have to be more careful next time, right?"
"R...right," Blaise replied, before falling into another sedated sleep, this time with an expression of annoyance on his face. He was obviously tired of being drugged like this, but apparently, the detoxification potion had yet to completely detox him. He would stay this way until it was finished...That only left the question of how much Blaise had actually drank...But Hermione had more important things to focus on. She walked back over to the fireplace to begin her Arithmancy homework.