Chapter 14-the ditch

Hermione was so incredibly excited for Friday. She could barely contain herself. She acted normally around Draco, so as not to give away the identity of Emily as being her. She wished that Draco and Damien were two different people, but she was kind of glad that they weren't, that way, even when Draco wasn't being that nice, she could remember that he was a very nice guy somewhere deep down. She was still having mood swings like crazy. If she was not a virgin she might have thought that she was pregnant. But unless she was the modern day Virgin Mary, that was not the cause.

Hermione had been trying, unsuccessfully, to use the progression of her symptoms to judge how much longer she had. Unfortunately she still had no clue. Her wand had still hurt really badly; she had taken to using her other hand more often. She was sparking all over the place; she accidentally set fire to her neighbor's robes in the Great Hall one day. She would randomly do magic when her wand was nowhere near her; she was in the middle of a shower one day when all of a sudden the bathroom was filled with alarm clocks, she'd had to find a way to vanish them quickly, the sound was infuriating. And she still had memory loss; she had walked into a third year class the week before, sat down, and opened her book before realizing that she was no longer in her third year and needed to get to her correct classroom quickly.

Draco Malfoy, though looking forward to Friday with Emily, had other things he needed to focus on. Hermione was getting worse. Her mood swings still troubled him, as well as annoying him. He was doing his best to be nice to her without being obvious. He knew that if he suddenly started acting super chummy with her then she would ask about a million questions and figure out that he knew. He was not positive of what her reaction to that would be, but he did not want to try it and find out. He did notice, however, that his niceties were being appreciated. He could tell that she was a bit more relaxed. Finding things done for her made her a little less frazzled, and she was much nicer to him as a result. He liked that she was warming up to him. He was devastated that she was dying, and he did not want her to die completely unhappy, nor did he want her to die hating him. He was a bit angry that her friends were so utterly oblivious to what was going on in her life, but he more than made up for it.

He did not plan on going home for the holiday. His hope was that she would stay too, and he might get extra time with her. She could go either of two ways. Either she wanted at least one more Christmas with her parents before she died, in which case she would go home for Christmas. Or, she wanted her parents to remember her as the vivacious, fun-loving, and energetic girl that she had been before she got sick, in which case she would remain at Hogwarts.

Both Hermione and Draco realized Thursday evening that they did not know where they were to meet up in order to go to Hogsmeade together. Luckily, Hermione realized this first and sent a letter off the 'Damien' right away, keeping it short and to the point.

Damien,
FYI, meet me at 9 o'clock on the second floor, in front of the statue of the mourning lady.
~Emily

Now, when Friday morning dawned, they both rushed getting dressed, with the day full of fun and excitement gleaming in front of them. They hurried to the statue and by the time the clock struck nine, they had already begun making their way down the tunnel.

"Don't you think it's weird?" Draco had whisper, because the tunnel they were it magnified everything they said to three times its original volume.

"What's weird?"

"You knowing who you are spending your time with and me being clueless?" He continued before she could interrupt. "I mean, I could be spending my time with a freakish, scary, murderous stalker who will never leave me alone and will eventually turn cannibalistic and eat me up, and I would not even know the danger that I was in."

Hermione laughed. "I see two flaws with that argument. One, do you really believe that there is such a person at Hogwarts, since you know that I am a seventh year at Hogwarts, do you honestly believe that one of our fellow students is capable of that? And secondly, you can't honestly tell me that after spending an entire evening talking with me and days passing letters back and forth with me that you think I could possibly turn out to be such a person. Are you such a bad judge of character that you think I could be murderous and a cannibal. If so, I'm not so sure I want to spend my time with someone so stupid. Even Draco is smarter that you are turning out to be Damien. Maybe you should have come as him, for intelligence sake." Draco chuckled, conceding to her superior logic. It was just that not knowing was making him crazy.

When they arrived in Hogsmeade, Draco asked where to first. Both being disguised as Emily and Damien, they did not have to worry about being recognized.

"I would like to start by getting a drink. Might I recommend the Hogs Head? It is much less crowded and will probably serve us alcohol without even asking our ages." Draco agreed and they began to make their way to the pub, it being a bit out of the way, they had time to talk on their way.

"So, you mentioned in your letter that you had some things that you specifically had to do here today. Might I ask what those things are? You did promise that they would be fun." Hermione smiled a bit too evilly for Draco's liking.

"Well, the first thing is to drink alcohol. Which is what we are off to do right now." She explained. "So that checks that off the list."

"What type of list is this that we are working off of, if it includes drinking alcohol?" Draco asked curiously, unsure of what he had gotten himself into.

"Well, it is our last year at Hogwarts." She explained slowly, as if talking to a young child. "There are some things that I wish to do before going out into the real world. Things I normally do not do. I do not want to live a sheltered life, going out into the world being ignorant. I pride myself in being intelligent, and as such, I wish to accomplish a few things while still in the safe environment of school."

"Well," Draco said, absorbing what she had said, "might I inquire as to what such things you need to 'accomplish'?"

"Sure you can." Hermione replied cheerfully. "I plan on getting a tattoo and buying a few choice articles of clothing that I have never possessed."

"What types of articles of clothing are we talking about?" He said as they walked into the pub.

"No." She replied. "You will only get to find out when I try them on and you help me to decide which to purchase." She smiled at this amusing thought, imagining his reaction.

"All right, be secretive." He motioned for her to sit at the booth nearest them. "You can sit here while I go and buy us a couple of fire whiskeys." She sat and waited while he went up to the bar and ordered their drinks.

After they finished their drinks and Hermione mentally checked alcohol off her list, they went to a tattoo place.

"I like this one." Draco suggested. Hermione came over to look at it. It was a huge dragon.

"No way!" She said fervently. "Do you want me to die of pain? It would kill me to have something so big carved into me." She took a calming breath. "Besides," she told him, "I want to have it tattooed on my lower back."

"Well, how about this one?" He pointed to a moving tattoo of a wand that produced a baby dragon, vanished it, and then produced an owl, all in green and red ink on the skin.

"That's cool." Hermione observed. "I didn't know that it could be charmed to change what's there." She looked at the price. "I don't think so though. I'm not so sure it's worth the extra cost." Draco saw her hesitancy at the price.

"How about I make you a deal?" He offered. Always cautious around Draco, even when he was Damien, Hermione had to ask.

"What kind of deal?"

"I'll pay for the tattoo if you get that one on your lower back and I can get it on my upper arm." Hermione thought about it. Matching tattoos. That sounded like fun. And he was willing to pay for it. God knows that he could afford them both.

"Sure. You've got yourself a deal." She smiled and he returned it warmly.

They got the tattoos, as painful as they were, and were very happy with them. After admiring their awesome matching tattoos for a little while, Hermione led him to their last stop. Because they were taking their own sweet time with everything, slowly sipping their drinks at the Hog's Head, talking and laughing all the way, it was already two in the afternoon. But Hermione knew that it would take a while to choose the right outfit at their last stop of the day. And maybe they'd go for one more drink, and a bit to eat too, before leaving.

"Why are we here?" Draco asked. They had stopped outside of a lingerie shop.

"I told you that I had a few things to buy before we left didn't I?" Hermione asked innocently, smirking slightly. Draco guffawed.

"Yes, but you did neglect to tell me what type of clothing you needed to get. Are you telling me that you plan on having me help you decide what underwear to buy?" He was staring at her in disbelief. Had he known that Emily was actually Hermione he would have been even more shocked.

"Yes, now hurry up. This may take a while." Hilariously enough, Hermione had him help her select a few different pairs of thongs and lacy bras to try on before heading back to the dressing room area. Hermione had Draco sit in the waiting area while she went into a stall to try her things on.

She came out in her first set, purple with white polka-dots and white lace.

"I didn't know you had your belly-button pierced!" Draco exclaimed.

"I come out dressed in only a bra and thong and you notice my belly-button piercing?" She asked. Draco laughed and looked at her outfit. Hermione blushed a bit.

"Well Emily, I must say, you look adorable. I now know why you say that purple is your favorite color."

"Thank you. And just so you know, I got my belly-button pierced on a whim when shopping for my masked ball dress. I got my ears pierced to go with my outfit, and I just couldn't pass up the opportunity. Now, I have to go try on some others."

They spend about an hour in the shop, goofing off and deliberating between sets of underwear. They finally settled on her getting the purple one with the white. It was very nice. Hermione purchased her items and they went to the Three Broomsticks for drinks and a late Brunch slash early dinner.

By the time they made it back to the passageway that they had gone through, it was already four thirty. It was five o'clock before Hermione walked into the common room she shared with Draco, having had to hang around in the prefects' bathroom since Draco had gone back to the room first.

"Hello Malfoy." She said as she entered. "You weren't in classes today." She said, using her knowledge of his ditching to her advantage, making it seem like she had been in classes all day.

"No, I had somewhere more important to be." He said nonchalantly.

"Oh," Hermione replied, making her way up to her room, "I hope that you had fun, where ever you were." Draco smiled, remembering, before quickly wiping the smile off of his face, sneering at her, and replying.

"Yeah, but probably not as much fun as you have being in class, you know-it-all. You wouldn't ditch to save your life. You're such a goody-goody." Hermione smiled, facing away so that he couldn't see. His statement and word choice amused her for two reasons. For one, she had ditched, with him. And secondly, she ditched because she couldn't save her life. She would definitely do it to save her life.

"Whatever you say Draco, but I wouldn't be so sure." She said softly, closing her door behind her.