Okay yikes, this is probably the worst chapter I've ever written of anything ever. And i feel bad because it's been so long but i just got really busy with university and christmas. I've been debating writing shorter chapters so I can update more often, hopefully, and I'm gonna give that a go. Just please be nice if you leave a review. I'm really sorry about this one but i want it up so i can move on. I really had no inspiration for this one. But i do for the next few. So we'll see how that goes.
Disclaimer: I don't own anything that you recognize here, it all belongs to J.K Rowling.
Leave a review if you enjoy! (but take pity on me, i know its bad)
The day of Buckbeak's execution came sooner than any of them had anticipated. It seemed that the time from February to June was less than it had been, even for Hermione who relived the same hours multiple times. Between spending time with Draco, studying for all of her many classes, and trying to maintain a good status with Ron and Harry, Hermione felt she barely had time to breathe and then suddenly it was the end of exams, and the day of Buckbeak's execution.
She had decided, along with Harry and Ron, to take a trip down to see Hagrid in the late afternoon to be with him before his beloved hippogriff was killed. They knew he would be in need of consolation.
Before that though, Hermione met up with her boyfriend in their secret cave. He noticed immediately that she seemed distracted, and without anymore exams to be fretting about, he couldn't find a reason for her to be all jittery.
"Where's your head at, Granger?" He asked, half teasing, half serious.
"I'm thinking," she muttered.
"Well quit it," he grinned. "Pay attention to me."
"You have such an ego," she smiled, shaking her head. "Really though, have you any idea what today is?"
Draco looked at her long and hard, trying to decide if she was serious. Apparently she was. "Yeah," he said finally. "I know."
Hermione sighed. "It's not your fault."
"Yeah, but it is, isn't it?" Draco stood up from his rock. "If I had just kept my big mouth shut you wouldn't be like this."
"Like what?" She asked. Draco noticed she didn't deny his statements. He resigned himself to the fact that they were true.
"All brooding and sad. I hate when you're sad."
"Don't beat yourself up. I don't really have an excuse for you, but I'd really rather not blame you." Hermione rested her chin in her hands, and her elbows on her knees.
Draco sighed and put an arm around her shoulders. "If you happen to go down there later and I happen to be there with Crabbe and Goyle, I give you permission to hate on me. And mean it. Do your worst."
Hermione looked up at him. wondering if he was serious. He was. "For Buckbeak."
"For the bloody pigeon."
"You! You fowl, loathsome, evil little cockroach!" Hermione had taken Draco's earlier words to heart, and when he provoked her, Harry, and Ron, she hadn't hesitated to draw her wand. She had it pointed at his throat and was pleased to see he was genuinely scared of her.
Well, that or he was a really good actor.
Either way, he was going to get it oh Buckbeak's behalf.
"Hermione, forget it, he's not worth it," Ron said furiously. Hermione lowered her wand, ready to back off. She'd made the show she wanted to and was ready to move on.
Then, Draco laughed. He laughed, and before Hermione could register what she was doing, her fist made contact with his face, a loud CRACK resounding across the clearing.
Draco and his followers raced back up to the castle, leaving a trail of blood in their steps. Harry and Ron were laughing as they went on ahead to Hagrid's, not noticing when Hermione hesitated to make eye contact with Draco. He looked back at her, following his cronies, and nodded once, moving his hand from his face. Through the blood, she could make out what he tried to mouth to her.
"Nice one," he grinned before turning away. Something was telling her that he had somehow faked being hurt, but her own logic denied that possibility. She had felt her hand make contact with his face, heard the crack, and seen the collision.
Deciding she was thinking too much into it, she shook all thoughts of the event out of her mind and ran to catch up with Ron and Harry. They had an execution to attend.
A bit later, Draco was nursing his fake broken nose in the Slytherin common room. He had to admit, he anticipated it being the Weasel or maybe even Potter who could get physical with him. He had used a kind of spell similar to a glamour charm that saved him from the pain, but made the break very much real. The lesser known spell came with a counter charm, a fixer-upper, that reset the nose. Draco's only problem was that he was now in possession of a very red stained, white school shirt.
He'd been surprised when it was in fact his girlfriend who punched him, but he was too proud to be any kind of angry. He had no idea she had that kind of right hook, and he now knew he really ought never to get on her bad-side.
At about 8:00, he felt the chain connected to Hermione's necklace begin to go cold. He sat up from his position on the couch, and looked at the entrance to the Slytherin common room. Bloody hell woman, it was an execution. You didn't have to get personal with it, he thought, knowing of her habit of getting involved with Potter in his nosy adventures. Groaning slightly as the necklace began to burn him with coldness, he stood. Crabbe and Goyle immediately turned to look at him.
"I'm going for a walk. Don't follow me." Draco didn't wait for a reply, instead he walked with purpose out of the common room.
As he walked, unsure of where he was going, he thought. His first thought was that it had to be related to the execution. That had been scheduled for around now.
"This is madness. Can we not have just one year where you don't go off on some mad adventure with Potter, endangering yourself and possibly causing me permanent nerve damage?" He glared at the chain around his neck. It was still freezing cold, warning him that she was in life threatening danger. "Honestly, this is ridiculous."
Draco fingered the chain, willing it unsuccessfully to go back to the normal warm pulse he had grown used to. Nothing changed. "Because she's got a bloody death wish," he muttered.
Draco wasn't sure where he was going. He wasn't exactly planning on getting involved in the madness again. To be honest, he wasn't sure his head could take it. But he didn't want to leave Hermione to potentially fend for herself.
He paused his walk near the main hall. There were still a few students milling about, but most had retired to their common rooms for the evening. The ones he did see gave him weird looks. He realized he must have looked frantic, tugging hopelessly on a chain, with an expression of uncertainty on his face for the first time ever.
He slid down behind a pillar, hoping nobody would trip on him, and entered an inner monologue.
You know that tonight was the pigeon's execution. You know she's been involved all year attempting to save it. Why? Because she has a heart of gold the size of Russia. Selfless witch would probably offer herself to save the bird horse. What can you deduce from this? That she is in danger trying to save that bloody animal. What other possibility could there be? Oh yeah serial killer Sirius Black is still on the loose. Maybe he got her.
Draco couldn't stop the tear that escaped from his eye. His best friend, his girlfriend, the only person in the world that mattered to him more than himself was probably going to die tonight.
"Pull yourself together man," he chastised. His inner debate became verbal. "The girl may have a death wish, but she's also got an unnatural will to live, and an uncanny ability to live through everything. She's battled mountain trolls for Merlin's sake. And what are you doing? You're sat on the floor crying because she might die. You could try to help somehow."
Draco stood, wiped hastily at his eyes, and snuck out of the school undetected. He figured he would head toward the half giant's hut and start from there. He didn't have any kind of plan, but he figured he'd see something that might spark something.
He didn't have to go far to see the weirdest thing of the night.
The Womping Willow was still. Not in it's usual relaxed state, but frozen, like someone had stunned it. "Curious," Draco muttered, heading slowly toward the tree.
He paused when he saw what appeared to be an entrance at the bottom of the tree. "What in the name of Merlin…?"
Suddenly he heard footsteps coming from the castle, running. With a second to spare, he hid himself behind a nearby bush. The figure, who he soon recognized as Severus Snape, didn't even look in his direction.
Draco could tell the potions master was muttering to himself, but he couldn't make out the words. Only two words stood out, and they had been spoken louder than the rest. Lupin, and Full Moon.
Had Hermione been right all along? Was Professor Lupin a werewolf? What did that mean for Hermione, being out here with a werewolf on the full moon?
He didn't have time to think about the answer, because Snape jumped down the hole in the tree and disappeared. Draco stood, completely in shock and confused about what was happening. He wasn't about to follow his professor. If Draco's interpretations were right, that passage led to where Lupin would be spending the full moon, and Draco had no desire to meet an angry werewolf on this occasion. He resolved to stay where he was, and wait to see the outcome of the situation.
The hippogriff escaped. How on earth Hermione had achieved that, Draco would never know. Not just that, but apparently Sirius Black has escaped as well. With the hippogriff. And Dumbledore knew. And Hermione was behind it, but Draco couldn't figure out how.
Hermione wouldn't tell him how they did it. All she said was "we used our time wisely."
Draco was convinced it was a load of bullshit, but he decided to let it go. Maybe it was one of those things he could get in trouble for knowing. It was always better to not know than to be found out hiding knowledge, especially when it involved serial killers, Draco thought.
He sat on the Hogwarts Express, going home after his third year ended just as eventfully as the previous years. Pansy was asleep beside him, and Crabbe and Goyle were engaged in some half witted conversation on the seat across from him. This provided him ample time to think. Think, because he refused to acknowledge his daydreaming about Hermione.
He found himself reminiscing on his last meeting with Hermione. She'd been unwilling to give him the whole story about how everyone escaped, but she did tell him about Sirius. The shock was evident on Draco's face as he learned that after all this time, Black was innocent. That was a big surprise, and following that conversation, he found himself once again reevaluating everything he'd grown up knowing. But, if he was completely honest, he wasn't really surprised that the pureblood beliefs and lifestyle was flawed. Being friends with Hermione had opened his mind to that fact, and he prided himself on being able to separate his family from himself.
The problem he faced now, was having to spend the summer with his family, and hide himself from them, again.
Oh, and the separation from his girlfriend. That was going to be fantastic, he rolled his eyes sarcastically, scoffing a little. Crabbe and Goyle looked up with stupid expressions, wondering what their leader was thinking about.
"Shut up idiots," he said. And they listened. Of course they did. As long as he didn't have to see them too often, he would survive the summer.
"Because I'm Draco Malfoy," he thought, turning attention back out the window.
