Phew. New chapter- went to rock eisteddfod yesterday, so I get today off :D hehehe yay!
The sun slithered through the holes in the shutters and cast a yellow glow in the tiny room. Hermione and Draco rolled over, trying to hide from it.
Hermione almost slipped off the bed, forgetting how small it was. Draco groaned. His neck was sore and stiff from sleeping on an odd angle, not to mention that he was cheesed about the room.
Hermione yawned, stretched and quickly got up. In ten minutes, she had a very quick shower, (it was dirty and covered in grime), making sure she scrubbed thoroughly, and was dressed in dry clothes, waiting for Malfoy.
He rolled out of bed and looked around. "Oh I thought it was a bad dream…" he mumbled then saw Hermione. He smirked. "Because it had you in it."
"Glad to know you think about me when you're sleeping Malfoy." Hermione rolled her eyes.
"I didn't mean it like-"
"What happened yesterday?" Hermione cut him off.
"What?" Malfoy asked, momentarily confused by the quick subject change. "Oh."
Hermione waited, her arms folded.
"I saw…I just saw something that made me uncomfortable." Malfoy answered, trying to brush past her into the bathroom.
Hermione tapped her foot as he closed the bathroom door. Ten seconds later, she heard him scream and throw the door open. A look of pure disgust and shock was all over his sharp features.
"That bathroom is absolutely foul!" he yelled at Hermione, as though he thought it was her fault.
"I know…not very pleasant." Hermione replied coolly.
"But…but I want a shower." Malfoy sounded like a kid in a candy store- but mummy wanted to leave without buying anything.
Hermione sighed in frustration, pushed him out of the way, pulled out her wand and cast a quick spell. "There. Now, you'd better hurry. The spell only lasts for five minutes."
Malfoy didn't need telling twice. He ran into the bathroom, slammed the door and turned around. It was clean now, and smelt like lemons. He quickly stripped down and jumped into the shower, wishing he wasn't there.
Hermione sat on the bed, waiting as she heard the water running in the room next door. She smiled. Payback time. She pulled her wand out again and waved it, a cunning look on her face.
Malfoy was hurriedly scrubbing his body, wanting to be clean before the spell broke. One minute, he felt the nice hot water, then the next it wasn't water hitting his back. He looked down and saw long and short, spaghetti like pink things wriggling around on the titled floor.
She heard Malfoy shout in surprise, then swear loudly.
Hermione grinned.
"WHAT THE HELL IT THAT?" he was shouting. He came running out of the bathroom, wrapped in a towel. He spotted Hermione sitting on the bed, with her wand held laszily in her hand. "WHAT THE FUCK DID YOU DO?"
"Malfoy, calm down. It was a simple spell." Hermione smiled. "It simply turns water into worms."
"Worms?" Malfoy's face paled. He remembered the pink things crawling around on the floor- on his feet.
"Yes Malfoy. Worms." Hermione smiled. "Are you nearly ready? We should get going."
"What the hell did you do it for?" he asked, now angry.
"Because Malfoy," Hermione said fiercely, turning angry herself. "You're hiding something from me. And I don't like the shadow that's hanging over my head. I don't want to be here. I don't want to go where I'm going. I want to be back at Hogwarts with my friends."
"You think I want you here?" Malfoy shouted back. "For Merlin's sake Granger, I didn't tell you because I didn't want you freaking out on me and becoming paranoid!"
"I'll decide if I become paranoid thank you!" Hermione snapped. "Tell me!"
"They were Death Eaters!" Malfoy screamed. "Happy now? They were death eaters!"
"You…but…you sure?" Hermione asked, her voice suddenly abandoning her.
Malfoy snorted. "Trust me Granger, I've seen enough to know what they are."
"Were they following us?" Hermione asked, feeling the paranoia creeping up on her.
"I…" Malfoy thought. They weren't acting like it or he would have seen another sign of them. "I don't think so."
Hermione looked to the floor. She was embarrassed about shouting at him when he was really trying to protect her…in weird way. But still, he could have told her…
Malfoy rolled his eyes. "Let's move. I don't want to be here any longer."
Hermione nodded in agreement. They had been there so long that the smell of the room was now stuck in their noses, and they couldn't really notice it, though they knew it was there.
They left the room quickly, gave the woman the key back. They didn't stay for the breakfast- who knew what was in it?
So without waiting for more than a minute, they left the inn and headed down the road, towards the broomstick.
"Did you see those boys?" a girl with long blond hair giggled as they walked past Draco and Hermione.
"Yes! How cute were they!" her friend replied, twirling black hair in her fingers. "And did you see that tattoo on the taller one? How hot was it? I mean, he must have been really creative to think up that design…a skull and a snake…so beautiful…"
Hermione and Draco, both of whom had zoned out at this conversation snapped up at the mention of the tattoo. They looked at each other with worried glances, then Hermione turned and ran after the girls.
"Excuse me," she said politely. The girls turned and looked her up and down suspiciously. "I couldn't help but over hear your conversation…and that tattoo you described…it sounds a lot like my…friend. I'm trying to find him. Which way did the boys go?"
The girls looked at each other and back at Hermione. "They were down that way…" the one with the blond hair said, pointing down the way that Draco and Hermione were heading.
Draco came up behind Hermione. She spun quickly, her hand in her pocket, clutching her wand. "Its only me Granger." Malfoy said holding his hands up.
Hermione didn't reply to him, only brushed past him and headed the way the girl had pointed.
When she noticed Malfoy wasn't behind her, she turned around and saw him talking to the two girls who were smiling and twirling their hair again. Hermione rolled her eyes, returned, grabbed Malfoy's arm and dragged him away. "Please, not now!" she hissed.
"I was just having some-"
Hermione pressed her finger to his lips. "Shut it!" she glared. She pulled him down an alley way, and threw him up against the wall. Hermione peeked around the corner. "They're coming this way!" she squealed.
Malfoy groaned. Why, in Merlin's earth did Voldermort have them followed? Did he think Granger and him would get…frisky? The idea sent shivers up Draco's spine.
Not particularly wanting to find out, Draco grabbed Hermione's arm and led her further down the alley way. They were running parallel to the main street, and after a few minutes of puddles and rats, they ran out into the open, and bolted for the forest that was just in view.
"I…am…so….sick of…running!" Hermione panted as they followed the trail back to where they hid the broomstick. Draco nodded in agreement, as he grabbed the broom and jumped on. Hermione didn't protest, and within seconds, they were gaining altitude rapidly.
Malfoy took cover in the clouds, and followed his pattern from before- ducking below the cloud line every now and then to check their direction.
The green forests below them started to disappear, and were replaced by grey mist, and dead, black trees. "Lovely." Hermione said sarcastically as they flew over the foreboding looking woods.
Malfoy was just thinking they might be able to reach Voldermort's lair without landing, and skip the whole swamp thing, when his broom convulsed, and stopped suddenly, knocking the wind out of its passengers. It was as though it had hit a wall.
"Malfoy, not another joke please." Hermione said, disapproving from behind.
"Its not me-"
Then the broom began to fall quickly, coming closer and closer to the ground.
2500 meters up…2000…1500…1000…700 meters…500 meters.
"Oh my gosh!" Hermione squealed, as the ground was looming ever closer. 400 meters. They were descending so rapidly that they didn't have time to breath the thin air.
"When I say…jump…JUMP okay?" Malfoy shouted, preparing himself as they went past the 300 meter mark.
200 meters above ground…150…100 meters up…
"Wha-"
50…25…10…
"JUMP!"
Zero.
Draco and Hermione jumped off the broom, and rolled together on the ground, hitting every part of their body with branches and the impact with the solid ground.
They stopped rolling about five meters apart. Hermione was panting, and clutching her side, while a trickle of blood ran down the side of her face.
Draco rubbed his temple- he had hit the ground before Hermione, and she had landed on him before rolling, so he had taken the full brunt of the fall. His head was pounding, and his ribs were sore and bruised.
He struggled to sit up, and swayed a little, seeing double of everything, before being able to steady himself and look around. He looked in the direction that they had rolled from and saw his broom. And he almost laughed.
His broom was sticking up vertical, looking like a javelin that's just been thrown. He wobbled over to it, and pulled it out. What was that muggle fiction story? Swat and the stone? No…sword in the stone, yeah that's what this felt like.
Draco slung the broom over his shoulder, using its strap, and walked back over to Hermione, still swaying slightly. "Granger. You alright? Can you walk?"
Hermione sat up and tried standing. "Yeah, I think so…" she said shakily.
"Good, cos I'm not carrying you." Draco said then looked around.
Tall thick grey trees stretched right up to the sky, and twisted around each other. The ground was muddy, and dusty, and had lots of dead leaves, and old branches, along with roots that stuck up oddly. There was a thin layer of mist everywhere. The bushes were thorny and dead, and snapped easily.
"This is charming." Hermione said, gesturing to a small pond that had brown, murky water, and dead lily pads and weeds.
"This is about as charming as it gets with Voldermort." Draco replied, his voice cracking the silence.
They started walking in a random direction, and jumped over the roots, tried hard not to come into contact with the thorns, though their clothes still were torn to ribbons, and tried to block out the boggy smell that overpowered everything.
Hermione already had the cut on her head from the fall, but now she had numerous cuts on her arms and legs, and a few on her face. She was sure she even had one on her stomach, where a particularly ferocious thorn had torn at her shirt.
Draco had cuts and scratches on his arms, where he had tried to protect his face, though somehow, he still had two long, sharp gashes on his cheek. His legs were scratched slightly, though his cloak and jeans had taken the worse of the thorn attacks.
They continued walking like this for a few hours, in almost darkness. They could see the sun shining above the thick tops of the trees, but it just couldn't get through to bring much light into the place. It had started to get colder, and mistier.
"So Granger." Malfoy said, tired of the silence.
"Yes Malfoy?" Hermione asked, almost tripping on a root she hadn't seen.
"Why are you a book worm?" asked Malfoy, breaking a branch.
"I…" Hermione normally would have taken offence, and maybe he wanted to offend her, but this time, she answered his question. "I don't know. I guess…when I was at school before Hogwarts, I didn't have many friends…reading and studying was the only thing I could do without loosing my mind."
"And you carried it through Hogwarts?" Malfoy asked, rising an eye brow.
Hermione nodded. "Yeah…I guess it became a habit. Then I met Harry and Ron…well, I still don't have lots of friends, but having two true friends is better than twenty fake ones."
"You think so?"
Hermione nodded again. "Well, fake friends are no use to me."
They walked in silence for a few minutes. Hermione grabbed a long thick stick and began bashing her way through the bushes, tried of them sticking to her clothes. She had never been this badly tangled in thorns since when she was in the forbidden forest, with Harry and hagrid, heading to hagrid's bother.
"Are you scared?" Malfoy asked quietly, after a few minutes.
Hermione was taken aback by the question. "Terrified." She answered after a pause.
"You hide it well." He said.
"Er thanks I think. Are you scared?" Hermione asked, and stopped walking.
"Not really. I will be if you're harmed though."
"Come again?" Hermione asked, taking that the wrong way. "Would you miss me too much?"
"Don't be ridiculous." Malfoy snapped. "I would miss whatever part of me Voldermort takes away as punishment."
It took Hermione a few minutes to understand that. "Gosh…I really am important to him aren't i?"
"More than you know." Malfoy said, then continued to walk.
Hermione was about to ask him why she was so important when a blood chilling roar sliced through the silence. It echoed in their ears, and heads giving them Goosebumps.
There was the sound of tree branches snapping, and something running fast, then something squealing in pain. Something fell heavily to the ground. Then silence again.
"What the hell was that?" Hermione asked, looking with wide eyes in the direction of the sounds.
"I don't want to find out." Malfoy said, and started walking a lot faster.
They heard something screaming again, more branches snapping, and thumping on the hard ground. Another loud, ferocious roar, and then silence again.
The sun had gone behind the horizon now, throwing them into darkness. The moonlight, however, like the sun was able to peek through, providing just enough light to see a few meters around them.
"We should find somewhere to rest…" Hermione said quietly. They heard another roar, much closer this time.
Malfoy looked around him and spotted the perfect spot. He rushed over to it, Hermione close behind him.
A large tree, about the size of the whomping willow, though without the whomping, stood there, its branches twisting, twirling and stretching to the black sky. The two started to climb it, sticking their feet and hands into gapes and holes.
They reached a good height and saw a small landing almost, where they sat, and listened closely.
"Granger, why haven't you run?" Malfoy asked curiously when they could hear nothing.
"Come again?" Hermione asked, taken back again.
"Well, like last night, I was out like a light…you could easily have ran for it…why didn't you?"
"I…well I didn't see the point…either you or Voldermort would have found me before I got within coo-ee of Hogwarts…and other than that, I have no idea where I am. So what was the point?"
"I see…" Malfoy said quietly.
There were no more sounds that were alarming. It was dead silent again. "Get some rest." Malfoy said, seeing Hermione yawn.
"What about you?"
"You can take the next shift." Malfoy said, watching the trees below them carefully.
Hermione nodded, and curled up into a ball. Within minutes, her breathing was smooth, and she was sleeping soundly.
Malfoy rested his head against a branch. He closed his eyes.
I'm not asleep…I'm not…
Malfoy was much younger, running down the large staircase in the manor. He was chasing a snitch that he had accidentally let go. He came to the foyer. Young Draco could hear hushed voices coming from the lounge room. He crept up to wall, and pressed himself against it. The door was slightly ajar, and he could just make out three people in the room.
Now he was in a dark, dark place. It was foggy and smelt disgusting. The trees were old and dead. Straight ahead was a mountain. A man was standing at its mouth, hooded and cloaked. He got closer to the man, and his mouth opened to speak, but instead of a voice, it roared loudly and nastily.
Draco's eyes snapped open. He looked around him. Hermione was still sleeping, but something out of the corner of his eye caught his attention. Something big was stepping through the bushes, pushing them roughly aside. It was a large black object, and it moved quickly, as though following the scent of something. It stopped, made a deep sniffing noise, and stood perfectly still.
Hermione stirred.
Malfoy jumped, and covered her mouth with his hand. "Shh!"
Hermione nodded, and he released her. He peered over the edge of the tree, and saw the beast was moving towards the tree itself.
Malfoy felt his blood run cold. Could the beast smell them? He looked at Hermione, who looked petrified. The beast stopped at the base of the tree and paused, sniffing something.
Hermione sat back against the branch, trying not to breath. After a few minutes, nothing moved or made a sound. Hermione's hand was resting on the ground, while her other was on her lap. She looked down, and saw about a ten centimetre long caterpillar crawling along in the dirt towards her.
Hermione pressed her lips together, trying to ignore it. Then suddenly it crawled onto her hand. She squealed in surprise.
Malfoy looked around in complete surprise, and saw Hermione. He scowled and narrowed his eyes. Then he turned back to the beast. "Oh Crap."
The beast had lifted its head and had spotted them. It roared loudly, and began bashing into the tree, pieces of bark flying off. The creature was hitting into the tree with its full force, angrily roaring each time it hit it.
Then suddenly it stopped.
Hermione was breathing heavily. "Whoops." She said meekly.
"Whoops?" Malfoy echoed enraged. "You scream, and almost get us killed, and whoops is all you can think to -"
The creature charged at the tree, apparently after getting a run up. It continued bashing the tree, and was getting closer and closer to breaking it in half.
Soon, the tree would snap, and come crashing to the ground, taking Draco and Hermione with it.
Short I know, but I'm writing these chapters, trying to remember what I had before so it sounds slightly different, and is slightly shorter. Please forgive me!
Aj.