Disclaimer: Please see previous chapters. Thank you!
A/N: Thanks so much to all who reviewed! They were excellent. We did not have as many as usual so if keep in mind that even if you did not care for it or don't have much to say I would still like to know what you thought. To those of you who longed for more Draco/Hermione I think you will enjoy this. Thanks for reading! Now, about Draco…
Stolen
Chapter 21: Where Draco Was
The bell that hung on the door frame tinkled merrily as Hermione pushed her way through the growing mound of snow into the pub. She did not feel nearly as bright and merry as that bell. She had just spent hours in the cold, staggering through some of the thickest snow she had ever encountered this early in November. Her teeth were chattering, her face stinging, her nose frozen, and hands stiff and chilled as a corpse. She had searched everywhere that had a light in the window, no matter what unsavory characters might be loitering about. From one end of the town of Hogsmeade to the other, she had trudged against the biting wind; half of the time wondering what had gotten into her fiancée and the other half wondering why she bothered to search for her him at all. More than once, in fact, she had considering turning back around and returning to school to change into warm, dry clothes and curl up in by the fire. There she could comfortably await his return and proceed to chew him out for such an irresponsible and unreasonable absence. Something, however, kept her footprints headed through town rather than turning towards warmth and safety. It was a gentle tugging in the back of her mind, like the current had on lure. It was a distant worry that perhaps something had kept Draco, that something terrible may have gone wrong and that was coupled with some confused delusion that this was somehow her responsibility. Though she may want to, something in her would not allow her to abandon him, and so on she forced herself with fear mounting with every step though she fought it down, calling it foolish in its very face.
Now, at long last, there he was in the Hogshead. After all her fanciful dreading, she was more than a bit surprised to find Draco slumped leisurely at the bar, red faced and jaunty. He was practically falling from his stool with a pint in hand that she seriously doubted was his first. Though this was by no means somewhere she felt comfortable, keeping her head held high, Hermione boldly made her way straight over to the bar and cleared her throat at his back. "Hello Draco," she said menacingly.
"Oi!" he exclaimed, pivoting half around. "Hello Hermione my old pal, old friend. What are you doing out here at this time of night? Little past your bed time isn't, eh?" He chuckled at his joke and lifted his mug once again to his mouth.
"I've been looking for you." Her voice was hard and stated very clearly that she was not about to hold much nonsense.
"Uh-Oh. Ooh. I think I'm in trouble mates." He elbowed the other men at the bar, some of them very young men, who guffawed loudly, making Hermione's face redden deeper. It did not faze her.
"Too right you are, and you are going to put that drink down right now, get up, and walk back to castle with me."
"I'm going to give you straight, Granger." He turned to her, expression suddenly genuine, if a bit dumb. "I don't think I can do that."
"Oh really? And why not?" she smartly replied, quickly growing sick of his difficultness.
"Because I doubt I can get up and I seriously doubt I can walk. You might find this hard to believe love, but I'm a tad bit home and I think I'd like to go drunk." He finished thoughtfully; looking rather pathetic she had to admit. Still, she was no where near laughing.
"You mean you are tad bit drunk and you'd like to go home." She corrected him.
"What? Yes, exactly. That's what I said."
"No. you said you were a tad bit home and you would like to go drunk."
"Of course I didn't say that. That's ridiculous, it doesn't make any sense. It makes me sound like a moron." He babbled.
"No, it makes you sound like a drunken moron and right now that's not too far off the mark."
"Listen here Hermione, I am tired and sick-" he slurred, wagging a wobbly finger in her face and squinting in concentration. "Of people telling me what did and said not say, er, or something like that."
"How many have you had?" she asked him, staggering backwards as his strong breath hit her in the face.
"Er," he began unsure. "Few. Several? I cannot give you an exact count." He said with false regret.
"And why can't you?" she demanded.
"I don't really recall now…"
"That's a lie." She said bitterly.
"What?" he asked outraged.
"We all know you don't know how to count." Draco fumed as the others at the bar chortled at Hermione's jibe. "Come on." She sighed, taking him under the arms to help him outside.
Once they stumbled out and were making their wobbly way through the snow back towards school, Draco seemed to recover from the embarrassment of having his fiancée drag him form the bar and even got into the holiday mood as he began howling Christmas Carols at the top of
his lungs. At one point, he stopped in his singing to face Hermione seriously. His breath once again assaulting her face, he said: "Before you get angry, I just want to try and see things from my perspective."
"Oh I'm trying." She assured him, her tone littered with more than a bit of sarcasm.
"You are?" he asked, incredulous.
"Yes, but unfortunately for you I can't seem to stick my head that far up my arse."
"I'm really not as think as you drunk I am!" he blurted out. She raised an eyebrow skeptically.
"Clearly."
"I'm only a bit tipsy!" he protested.
"Tipsy?" she shouted back, then scoffed. "You're practically poring over."
"Hehe. Pouring. Like a teapot. Are you calling me a teapot, Granger?" he giggled foolishly.
"No. I'm calling you an idiot." She responded dryly, huffing with the effort it took to drag him uphill. He giggled mindlessly as they made the rest of the way back up to the school through the growing chill. She had to cast a silencing charm to quiet him in the hallways. Once upstairs, she did not remove the charm right away. To be honest, she did not feel like listening to his drunken rambling one bit. She couldn't believe him! How could he be so, so STUPID? He had done ridiculous things before, certainly, but this took the cake. She wanted to strangle him. Instead, she helped him into his pajamas and then into bed while he giggled soundlessly at her.
Finally, she removed the spell with a resigned sign as she moved to ready herself for bed. From where he laid, Draco spoke to her, pouting no less.
"You know. You really should try not to fall in love with me."
She scoffed. "I will try not to."
He moaned, tossing in his bed and trying to get comfortable. From under the covers he mumbled incoherently.
"What?" she asked, though she did not really have an interest in knowing.
"This is your fault you know. You did not have to say it."
"Excuse me?" she demanded laughing in a way that showed she was anything but amused. "Are YOU blaming me? Me? You are the one who ran off, alone, and got-got utterly inebreiated!"
"Speak English."
"Drunk." She responded sharply. You're drunk and you're saying it's because of something I said. I don't remember telling you to go see how many bottles of firewhiskey you could down in an hour. What could I have possibly said to vex you so you turned into a bloody drunk?"
"That you hated me." It was as if something had slapped her across the face.
"I never said that." She said, puzzled.
"You said, you did not love me, you didn't even like me." Then he had overheard her speaking to Harry and Ron. He had heard what she said about him. But she didn't mean it- did she?
"Why do you care anyway?" she snapped defensively, very thankful her could not see her face behind her dressing curtain.
Without warning he shouted at her from across the room as she emerged. "How am I supposed to be honest with someone who only pretends to like me? I thought you were on my side! I thought we were working together! You lie, just like everyone else." She was taken aback, not by his sudden outburst alone but also by the look in his eyes that accompanied it, that stinging glimmering gloss over them that threatened to spill over, that pewter color swallowing them up. She recognized that feeling. She was no stranger to it herself. He was not upset that she wasn't in love with him; he was upset that she had lied to him, used him, mistrusted him, and hated him even. She had left him alone.
"I did not say I hated you Draco. I don't hate you." She gently clarified, guilty.
"You said you were just pretending to like me, for the Order. What does that mean?" He ventured curiously. She thanked God for his drunken state.
"It means," she hesitated. "It means that I said I didn't like you so that my friends wouldn't be angry with me. I'm not in love with you. You know that part is just pretending, but, well, I like you enough I guess."
"I'm confused," he groaned, already gripping his head. She went over to his bed, turned out his lamp, and went to pull his curtains. "Are you lying to me or your friends?"
"I-" she stopped. "I'm confused too." Now it was her turn for those fiery drops to swell and sting her eyes. His own glassy ones looked up at her nightgown clad figure above him with a most unfamiliar look in them; they seemed to swell and then darken by widening pupils. Arching back his neck, as he examined her from where he laid, indisposed. She was made somewhat uncomfortable with eyes ablaze like that, but stayed her ground, curious. He sighed oddly and she waited for him to speak. His breathing deepened as he stretched and half propped himself up on his pillow. This time, his breath barely reached her when he spoke.
"Kiss me." He requested plainly as if they had long been lovers who would be parting now for a time. With that, she shut the curtains and left him to promptly pass out. It was not his request that bothered her, but his tone that had unnerved her. There had been such- dare she say it- intimacy there. Not seduction. Not lust. Just intimacy.
Alcohol, she told herself, did strange things to people. It made them say things they would not normally say, do things they would not normally do, forget who they really were, or she reminded herself, who they were pretending to be.
Shaking the notions from her spinning head, she retired to bed herself. She should not allow it to grate on her nerves so, she told herself. He was drunk after all. Yes, and he would not remember in the morning, but she would. She would remember the words and lies she had become tangled in earlier. Who was she lying to anyway? She was beginning to like Draco, but she could not admit that to her friends. Snape's words too weighed heavily on her thoughts. "Sooner or later everyone makes mistakes." Were her feelings for Malfoy going to be her mistake, her downfall? Was this not what she was supposed to do? Make friends with him and bring him over to their side? Why did fooling him feel so, well, wrong?
Perhaps there was an idea. To earn his trust, she must show her trust in him. There could be no manipulating him for the book of Casus Malfoy. It was too risky. Yes, that was it! She had once read that the truth was one's greatest weapon, so she would wait for the opportune moment and she would tell Draco the truth, the horrible, ugly, and terrifying truth or Voldermort and who his leader really was. Then, she would ask him for the diary. If she had done the rest of her job well, he would agree. If not, she had already failed anyway.
But perhaps what bothered her most of all as she tossed and turned seemed silly in comparison to all she had to agonize over. All the same, she could not help but think of the moment- the half a mad moment - when kissing Draco Malfoy had looked like a good idea. It was brief, a typical second when her teenage hormones momentarily became the tyrant of her body before being shoved back into place by her good reason. Absurd, though he did have his handsome moments: looking up at her from his bed, covered in cold rain upon a windy edge, light hair flaked with snow and laughing at her as he chased her, infuriated with eyes burning and smoldering wildly. She shook her head again, clearing it of those images. Lust was more powerful a vice than she had given credit for in the past. She had never been so tempted from her senses by Ron…Ron.
His anger and Harry's concerned face swam before her eyes again. Frustrated, she punched her pillow. Hermione Granger did not sleep a wink that night, which was very unhealthy for someone so close to exams. Consequently, she rose the Monday morning for classes groggy, grumpy, and what some- some meaning Draco- would call vile. In fact, he did call it just that. He was a fine one to talk, she sourly reflected, all hung-over as he was.
Be that as it may, by afternoon her mood had greatly improved. Now that all distractions were out of the way, fights with friends, major epiphanies, almost kisses, drunken excursions, and classes, they could get down to the really important business: to the library! For some mysterious reason, Draco did not seem as excited about their little trip as Hermione was. Of course, what could she expect really? No one had ever shown genuine enthusiasm in joining her in library. It had been some while since she had determinedly marched to those shelves and searched diligently for something of significance and could not help but feel then the contentment one received from scratching a very persistent itch at long last.
Hermione had shared her story with Draco of her encounter this summer in as much detail as she could muster and explained to him her idea to piece together a list of information known about the animal that attacked her and her friends from both encounters. For instance, they knew it had to posses remarkable stealth, it was significantly large, hunted at night, had horrible breath, a snarling growl, and was furred. Highly cooperative, Draco wrote down adjectives and observations during her narration of the attack on her and her friends, helped recall all the words Neville had chosen to describe it, and even made a small sketch of what the creature may look like taking these characteristics into account. She was impressed with his artistic skills and told him so. For once, he was not unbearably cocky.
They found what they were after pretty quickly. Actually, Draco pointed it out first. There as a small paragraph in their former textbook, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, on an animal that caught his eye. He matched its description to the list he had been studying and excitedly called her over to read it. She stood behind him, reading over his shoulder, eyes widening as they scanned the page. There were only two sentences on it, but two very enlightening sentences that seemed very promising: the Nundu.
"This East African beast is arguably the most dangerous in the world. A gigantic leopard that moves silently despite its size and whose breath causes disease virulent enough to eliminate entire villages, it has never yet been subdued by less than a hundred skilled wizards working together.'"
"Draco, you may be on to something."
Feeling victorious and proud of himself, he lightly pounded a fist on the table with a smile. She raced to the appropriate section and dug out a volume on the most dangerous foreign beasts.
How foolish! She had only thought to look at those that were native to Britain, but, she told him as she rifled through the book, if the animal that attacked her and her friends was native then it would have been spotted about the castle grounds or attacked before now. This, of course, meant that it wasn't there by accident. Someone had put it in the forest. But why? Was its goal to attack students or had that been a digression from their plan? Had they lost control of the creature? It was a wild beast after all. Or could the attack have been part of the plan, a diversion not unlike the one Harry and Ron had been planning to allow them entrance in the Chamber of Secrets?
"Draco, that's it! You found it. It's very powerful and dangerous, a giant leopard, horrible toxic breath, silent in its stalking. But it's from Africa, so it must have been brought onto school grounds by someone!"
"But who?"
"I don't know. We can figure that out after we find out how to cure Neville."
Thus the hectic search for the antidote to the nundu poison began. This part was far more difficult and took a great deal longer. About dinner time, Draco got exceptionally whiney, but about that time Hermione leapt from the ladder and practically landed on him, declaring happily that she had found it, only to be furiously shushed by madam Pince.
"I found it Draco!" she whispered excitedly again, her eyes watering in relief. Neville would be fine! He looked on eagerly, former complaints for food momentarily forgotten. "What is it?"
"A potion. It's difficult, but I'm sure Snape can do it. Come on!" she began to drag him towards the door. Draco did not budge.
"What?"
He hesitated, his expression dark. "Hermione, does that potion have any side effects?"
"Well, I didn't really finish reading the article…" she drifted off as she read it to herself. Her excitement dampened. "Oh dear." She gulped. "If the nundu is not the cause for the victim's sickness then the antidote is so strong it's fatal."
"Then don't you think we ought to be sure we're right before we come running in to save the day?"
"You're absolutely right." She settled quickly.
"I am?" he asked, surprised at her answer.
"Yes. And I've just had an idea. We need to catch a glimpse of these things for ourselves on the grounds to make sure."
"Catch a glimpse? Hermione are you mad? They'll eat us!"
"That's where my idea comes in. You see, these cats hate water so we can go out onto the lake and wait for it to appear at night hiding in one of the boats. Once we witness it, we can be certain enough and tell Madam Pompfrey and Snape-"
"But if someone put it there on purpose don't we need to find out who and why before they know that we know? I mean, what happens if it's someone on the inside? Aren't we jeopardizing things here?"
"But Neville's life is in jeopardy!"
"I know but-"
"Maybe the two of us could brew it. That way no one besides us would know. I think we could manage it. We are both fair in potions. Mind you, we'd get no credit for it."
"Great, that's just what we need right now."
"Draco, it's his life that matters."
"I know I know. I'm only saying. How do we figure out who brought it on the grounds then?"
"What if we brewed it in secret? Then once we saved him we watched people's reaction very closely?" Hermione proposed. "If it is someone inside the castle who brought it in, then they are going to know we what's really going on and that someone is on to their scheme. We can watch for it in their faces."
"That's brilliant!" Draco exclaimed, not bothering to conceal his astonishment. "How do you come up with this stuff?"
"Well, you did help quite a bit." She said modestly.
"I guess we make an okay team at times."
"Not bad. Now all we have to do is camp out on the lake tonight and-"
"Whoa! 'We'? I beg your pardon Miss Granger, but I, for one, am not sleeping on a freezing lake to get a glimpse of a ferocious, lethal cat."
"Well I can't do it alone! I need your help." She protested.
He paused and asked innocently. "Sorry, what was that?"
"I said: I need your help." She repeated, irritated. "Are you going to do it or not?"
"Hmm…" he stroked his bare chin thoughtfully. "Say please.
She sighed exasperatedly, but acquiesced nonetheless. "Please."
"I'll consider it." He teased obnoxiously.
"Come on, Draco. Please." She persisted, frustration mounting.
"Kiss me." He proposed suddenly.
She shoved him half heartedly, ignoring his request. "Come on."
"Worth a try." He said with a tilt of the head and that trademark, insufferable smirk of his.
"Aren't we going to dinner?" Draco called to her back as she headed back towards Ravenclaw tower.
"No! We don't have time. We've got to be out there by nightfall"
With a low growl, he reluctantly followed her. Upstairs, they readied themselves for that night. Hermione packed her first aide kit, an assortment of magical and muggle healing materials and a couple consultant books should they need them. With it she packed two sets of Ominoculars along with the photograph of a nundu from a book in the library to identify it.
"We're going to need food." She told Draco as he watched her pack.
"That, I can handle." Off he went to sneak into the kitchens like she had showed him. She smiled at his retreating figure and thought of something else to pack: Draco's book of Poe's works. They still had a story to finish and she was certain they would get bored at some point in time waiting out there. That would be one way to keep him awake. What else did they need? Blankets! Draco was right. It was going to be awfully cold out there on the lake once night fell.
While she waited patiently for him to return, from the window she found the perfect location for their boat to rest. It was completely surrounded by several meters of water for safety, closer to the edge of the forest than to the center so that it would be easier to spot the creatures moveing from the woods. This would be a lot easier if they could borrow Harry's cloak and map, she thought, but, under the current circumstances she was not about to ask.
Draco returned eventually, just as the sun was setting.
"You took your sweet time." She told him.
"You won't be complaining when we're out there alone on that cold lake starving." He was quick to point out.
"Oh, what's the matter Draco? Don't you think it will be romantic?" she crooned with absurd affection. He snorted. The two made their way out onto the grounds without being questioned, though they received a few funny stares as they left the castle and retreated into the dusk. Once outside, the two hurried down the slope to Hagrid's cabin. There, Hermione knocked hard upon, making fang bark, as Draco gazed perplexedly at her. Hagrid swung open the door quickly, clearly stunned to see Hermione, and even more stunned to see who was keeping her company.
"Hermione!" he declared with affection. "Malfoy! What's he doing here?"
"There's no time to explain Hagrid. We need you to take us where the boats for the first years are, at once. Can you do that?" she explained quickly, out of breath.
"Of course," he said after only a moment of pause and confusion. "Let me just grab a couple things." The door swung open wide to reveal two guests sitting wordlessly at Hagrid's table with Fang. Harry and Ron exchanged a meaningful glance over their oversized tea cups. There was a moment of silence between the three friends that made Hermione feel very lonely until Harry awkwardly cleared his throat and spoke up. "Are you after the thing that attacked Neville?" he asked plainly.
"Yes." Hermione answered cautiously.
Ron took a large swig of whatever was in his giant tea cup and asked with great internal effort, "Do you need any help?"
Unable to stop herself, she bounded forward hugging them both tightly around the neck as they smiled and embraced her back.
"We're sorry Hermione." Ron offered, timid and earnest, staring her right in the eyes.
"It's alright." She sighed tearfully, though it wasn't entirely true. "What made you believe us?"
"Hagrid told us he's had attacks on most of the creatures and the centaurs are fired up. He found Neville in the forest, described the wounds. Apparently centaurs interfered. It makes sense with what happened this summer, you know." They looked at Draco, trailing off.
"He knows." Hermione informed them. "We think we know what it is, but if it is what we think it is, it was brought here by someone and we need to find out whom. We also need to lure it out of the woods to get a good at it."
Draco coughed. "Come on Hermione. We have to hurry." He announced impatiently. There was no time for the boys to shake hands and make up, even if such a thing were possible. At the last possible second, Harry grabbed her arm and pulled her to him. He hugged her tightly, pushing his face into her hair. In her ear he whispered urgently, "Neville was attacked Halloween night. We didn't find him until the next evening because his mission was secret and his body was drug into the forest. Do you where Draco was then?"
"He's right," said Hagrid grimly. "Let's go."
Harry and Ron stood. "We'll take car of the bait."
"Thanks." Hermione said gratefully over her shoulder as she stepped out the door. It shut behind them heavily as they stepped on the frosty ground. Darkness was tugging at the end of the tree line and beginning to cover the grounds. She was in a daze. So Harry and Ron's apology had been show. They still thought Draco may be at least partially behind it. This time she couldn't prove his innocence. She eyed him carefully. Why would he be helping then? She had heard of it before, people who caught fire to things to look like a hero when they put the fire out. Could Draco be doing the same thing to gain her trust? The fear she had seen his eyes had been real, his resistance not farce. Snape was right; she needed to trust Draco over her friend's baseless suspicions.
Following Hagrid's great strides, the group made it quickly to the steps from which they had entered in their first year where the boats were tied to a pier in a grotto of the castle connecting to the lake. They took one boat and untied it quickly, stuffing their things in the bow.
"Thank you Hagird." Hermione offered.
"Well that's what friends are for." He laughed. Draco took her wrist and pulled her into the boat. The wind was blowing out on the lake and stirring up the water in waves. She shivered in anticipation. It really was going to be freezing out there. She accepted Draco's arm, using it to steady herself.
"Right, well, I best be getting back. You two look after one another out there, you hear?"
"Yes." Hermione answered, pushing off from the dock. She turned to Draco who was looking down with a very worried expression stretched across his face. He looked up, realizing he was being addressed as well and they were waiting for a reply.
"Yeah." He said and then the two were being swallowed by the darkness of the tunnel leading out onto the lake. In fear and cold and silence they trembled, rowing themselves to the spot she had proposed earlier. Forebodingly, the iron gate that opened the cavern docking area to the lake lowered and clanged into place. Once they were out there, she performed a simple anchoring charm to hold them in place. However, she knew no spell to repel the wind that would not also impair their hearing, so they had to suffer it, hunched over under blankets, hoods up, scarves tied snuggling. In fact, it soon became dreadfully clear just how much they had overlooked in their rushed planning.
It was already hard enough to hear through the screaming of the wind or the howling it made through the trees, but the cloth muffled any noise the animals might make if they attacked. In addition to this, they would have to hold those omnioculars pasted to their eyes for hours if they hoped to spot anything. Being out there all night also meant they had to stay awake all night. What's more, by putting themselves out there they had ensured their safety from attack as the animals would not brave the water, but they had also trapped themselves. No matter what happened, they could not leave the lake until sunrise. Slowly, this dawned on both of them and the silence between them deepened.
Finally, Hermione sighed wryly. "I guess it wasn't so brilliant after all."
"We'll make it." Draco said, his breath fog on the icy night air.
"I can't see anything!" she growled, tired of straining her eyes into the darkness.
"I think I can help with that." He said smoothly. He swished his wand once over the water and a thousand tiny lights flickered to life on its surface. It was a remarkable sight, like fairy lights
dancing all across the black face of the lake. It made the fog that came off it into the chilled air glow almost eerily. She took in a sharp breath as a slick smile slid over his features in triumph.
"How did you-"
"Candles." He answered simply. Still, she remained flabbergasted, not at the mystic sight, but at his gesture. It had taken thought and preparation, not qualities one usually associated with Draco Malfoy. Her mouth flopped gracelessly and speechlessly, like a fish.
"Let's warm up, shall we?" He then extracted a large bottle of sherry from his canvas bag he had brought along from the kitchens. Finally she closed her mouth and smiled, accepting the glass he held out. Was he being smooth?
"Thank you."
"You're welcome." He said with plain civility. "Hungry?"
"Famished."
"Good, me too. Let's eat." He then produced from the satchel some sponge cake, still warm. They ate if first, taking it with their sherry and savoring its warmth. Then he also handed her a turkey leg.
Draco looked pensive during their makeshift dinner, avoiding direct eye contact and not returning her grateful smiles. Harry's words of suspicion and mistrust surfaced and in the silence nothing could keep them from floating in her brain: "Do you know where he was?" He was with Pansy, wasn't he? But did she know? Could she be certain? Krum's voice now echoed in her head too: "Trust no one."
After a while, Draco began to collect and sullen air about him, and did not say a word when she thanked him for her hard boiled egg. His foul mood was infectious.
"You bring the book?" he asked a little while later, interrupting the melancholy droning of the lapping waves on the boat and the wind's shrill wintery, whistle which were the only sounds left on the water.
"Yes," she said.
"Let's read." He proposed. "Can't hear anything out here anyway." She rummaged in the bag for a while, looking for it amid the bundles of things she had brought.
"Your friends were certainly in a hurry to blame me." He voiced at last.
"They've wanted to attack you for some time I imagine. They've been looking for a fight since I accepted the proposal. They think you've stolen me from them."
"Skeeter got one thing right did she?"
"You were in the hospital the day before Neville was attacked, like they said they didn't see you. It gave them reason to suspect you I suppose. I cannot be sure those two would not have anyway. Ron always seems to jump to the conclusion that you are behind everything. He thought you opened the Chamber of Secrets. Last year, Harry obsessed over what you were doing in the room of requirement. With all that brewing and then the article to enrage them, it was a recipe for disaster. They don't like you, so of course they want to blame you; just like you blame them."
"Do I?" he arched an eyebrow aristocratically.
"'If it wasn't for Harry…' isn't that your motto?" she asked sharply, then added sadly. "And as for Harry, blaming you keeps him from having to blame himself. Neville was out there on his orders and Harry's the one who trained him in self defense. If a monster truly attacked him, Harry will have to deal with that guilt. But there's no use pretending. You two have always hated each other. Neville and I were just your excuse for fighting." She said bitterly, redirecting her attention to her meal.
"If you recall correctly, I was not the one seeking a crude fight. I have more honor than that."
"Maybe." She granted doubtfully.
"I beg your pardon." His voice hardened.
She looked at him again. "More class anyway. You would have dueled him?"
"Of course."
"Where were we?" she sighed contently at length, opening the book.
"The door had just swung open."
On she read as the Lady Madeline, put living inside her tomb, emerged and the narrator fled in terror. Meanwhile, Draco followed her every word riveted to the very last sentence which she read shuddering and teeth chattering, not from fear but the biting cold that enveloped them.
"'-there was a long tumultuous shouting sound like the voice of a thousand waters- and the deep and dank tarn at my feet closed sullenly and silently over the fragments of the House of Usher.'" He sighed thoughtfully. She guessed that meant he liked it.
"A poem then?" she too sighed. He nodded in accordance, absentmindedly. She labored against the cold to get out her favorite poem, the lesser known and mysterious "Ulalume".
"What does it mean?" he asked at the end, head cocked like a perplexed puppy as he finally glanced up at her. "Well I think-" she began, but he stopped her suddenly by pressing a finger to his lips and shifting in his seat.
"Did you hear something?"
"N-no." she chattered.
He grunted. "Must have been the wind. We're going to freeze to death out here genius. Sleeping outside like animals." He said resentfully.
She knew what was coming, and as much as she abhorred its coarseness and commonness, she welcomed it all the same. Moving close together to the center of the boat, the pair draped the over both their shoulders and hid their gloved hands within their cloaks, pulling up their scarves to cover their faces from the gales. Pressed together, through the cloth each could feel the warmth radiating off the other and their bodies soaked it in hungrily. Shuddering and waiting, they struggled to stay awake, resorting to actually talking to each other to keep from drifting off. Closely, so that the steam from their breath intertwined as they talked, they sat side by side and pondered what Harry and Ron could possibly be up to.
"M-maybe they are tying themselves t-to a tree." Hermione jokingly proposed.
"I don't think I'm that lucky." Draco joked darkly.
"Did you hear that?" her head jerked up.
"No." he groaned, bothered that she had pulled down the blanket.
It came again. It almost sounded like a particularly nasty wail of the wind, but something was off about it. Something was alive about it. The two scrambled for the omnoculars they had long ago abandoned with hopes of spotting the invisible creatures. Another snarl came, this one nearby, frightening Hermione so that she whimpered and grabbed Draco by the shoulders. Taken by surprise, he still held onto her. Embarrassed, she looked away and pushed herself of his warm chest. He clutched her arms, holding her in place. He whispered, barely audible, "Kiss me."
Indeed she would not have been sure she had heard it at all if he had not been so close that she felt his breath on her lips. Their lips accidently, just barely, brushed against each other, nerves tingling, bodies heating up, drawn towards each other, smiles threatening to stretch. She should pull away now, but she was pulled to him inexplicably like a moth to the flame. It was so dark, no one would know, even she would not be sure it had happened if she just opened her mouth half an inch further and-
"Do you know where he was?" Harry suddenly asked in her head. She came crashing back to her senses, jerking away from him.
"What's your bloody problem?" he snapped.
A sudden scream ripped through the still night air making them jump.
A/N: The kiss interrupted again! I do hope at least some of you found Draco's little excursion humorous. For those of you wondering, the nundu is found in J.K. Rowling's book Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them and was not my own invention. Was it a nundu that attacked them, or something else? Whatever it was, who put it there? Let me know what you think, please. A few minutes of your day can make mine: review!