***A.N. Thankyou to everyone who is reading my story! Ih ope that you are enjoying reading it as much as i have enjoyed writing it! The end is nigh, so hold in there!***
Chapter Twenty-Five
Draco hurried along a second floor corridor towards where he hoped he would find Pansy, Crabbe and Goyle. They had mentioned before lunch that they were going to be up there defacing the stone busts lining the halls, drawing moustaches on them and whatnot. He was planning on deterring, and leading them up to the astronomy tower under the pretence that there was an illegal group meeting up there. He had just prepared what he was going to say when he rounded a corner and stopped in horror.
Right in front of him, standing there and grinning in a deranged fashion was Umbridge, triumphantly towering her unimpressive height over the top of Weasel, who was being sat on by Crabbe whilst Pansy tied his hands. The red-head Gryffindor was turning purple under the sheer force that was Crabbe's weight, and Malfoy couldn't help but feel a twinge of triumph and, oddly, sympathy. Malfoy prayed that he would never be in Weasel's position, at least not with gravity acting in the way that it currently was. His initial shock at the scene was quickly and smoothly wiped from his face and Umbridge noticed him.
"Ah, Draco! You are just in time! I am so glad to see you. Come, look here." He smiled at the loathsome woman and approached the conundrums on the ground. He was convinced that Umbridge would be able to hear his heart pounding, but she didn't, merely giggling in her nauseating way and 'tsk'ing at the ginger.
"This unfortunate child attempted to lie to me. It seems he was trying to distract me from some misdoings going on in the castle, most likely in my office." Malfoy wondered at the horrid woman's intuition. How on earth could she know? He thought, panic threatening to take over where his calculating self was stepping down. He willed himself not to run and find Hermione immediately, trying to reason with himself. That would only do more harm than good, he Umbridge's hunches bordered on paranoia, but right at that moment they were unnervingly bang on the dot. Malfoy's stomach turned to ice as she continued on, and he closed his eyes to concentrate on keeping his legs from moving.
"It is obvious that the mudblood Granger is involved in this. She and Weasel are always skulking about with Potter. I am making it your duty to capture her, along with anyone who is helping them and bring them immediately to me. You have my permission to use Unforgiveables if it comes to the worst. The ministry will understand, I assure you."
She turned and the other Slytherins trotted down the hall after her, and Draco had nothing to do but follow. Pansy came up beside him and whispered,
"We finally get to give that little mudblood exactly what she deserves, don't we, Draco?"
Draco said nothing. What you think she deserves is probably very different to me, he thought through his gritted teeth, thinking of his roses and the silver bracelet bouncing around in his pocket. He could only hope blindly that Hermione and her idiotic friends were already cleared out and gone from Umbridge's office by the time they arrived. It had all taken a sharp turn for the worse, and Draco noted to his own horror that he had absolutely no control of the situation.
"Hurry up, Harry!" Hermione could hear footsteps coming, and knew that not everything had gone according to plan. She looked desperately between the door and Harry's doubled over figure in the fireplace, disconcertingly missing it's head. He was surrounded by green flames.
"Come on, come on, come on," she hopped from foot to foot and felt like she would burst from the tension. When the door exploded open and Slytherins began pouring into the room, Hermione was ready with her wand and managed a few well-aimed hexes at both Crabbe and Pansy. She twirled around in the close quarters and kicked Goyle in the shins, causing him to cry out, and then spun to face an oncoming Pansy when she saw it and everything moved in slow motion; Pansy's face lit up in cruel triumph as a glittering spell shot straight at Hermione; a familiar yell from her left; screaming from Umbridge. Then before she could even register who's voice it was yelling she was suddenly flattened upon the pink shagpile carpet.
For a few moments Hermione was stunned, her brain steadfastly refusing to click back into gear. Only when the person on top of her had whispered into her ear,
"I couldn't stop them," and then moved away did she realize she had been saved, yet again, by Draco Malfoy. Beefy arms lifted her roughly into the air, and much to Hermione's surprise and hilarity she found out that the manly arms belonged to Millicent Bulstrode. She had to stifle back laughter as the brutish girl pinned her against a wall, more gorilla-turned-bodybuilder than anything else. But, she realized that she ought to play along, and placed a frown upon her face, attempting to fight the girl away. The Slytherins brought in their captives; Luna, Ginny, Ron and, surprisingly, Neville. How on earth did he get here? Hermione wondered, but cleared the thought. There were slightly more pressing matters at hand.
Harry's head was dragged out of the fireplace by the toad-woman and she wildly began questioning him. It was only when she raised her wand, eyes wide and muttering incoherently about Unforgivables that Hermione realized everything had gone too far. Suddenly, without any warning to the others, she shouted,
"FINE! I'll TELL YOU!" and buried her face within her hands. She conjured up some sobs that would have won muggle movie awards. Peering out from underneath her hand, she saw the stunned and revolted looks from her friends, but that wasn't what drew her attention. It was the wide-eyed, terrified face of Draco that she couldn't remove her eyes from. She could see, etched plainly on his face, the deep internal struggle he was having at that moment. Reveal himself and probably get hexed into oblivion by every member of the room in an attempt to comfort her, or play the game, save her as soon as possible. She could see from his eyes, as they began to harden with determination, that he had decided to take option one. Hermione needed to send him a message somehow, to tell him not to. She lifted her face slightly, and their eyes snapped together like magnets. She stared, he stared, and then she gave the tiniest wink, and his eyes widened in understanding. Satisfied, Hermione let out yet another almighty sob, and Millicent dropped her to the ground like a burst Stinksap pod. Now, I need to play this carefully, she thought to herself as Umbridge closed in on her, talking to her in the most vile caricature of motherliness that Hermione almost gagged. For some odd reason, the first lie that popped into her head was of a weapon in the Forbidden Forest, created by Dumbledore. It was a risky move; the centaur's in there were very restless at the moment, due in part to the presence of Grawp in their territory and the efforts of Umbridge herself to have them classed as animals. Hermione decided to risk it anyway. It was the only way to get everyone out of there without being tortured or maimed. Taking a shuddery breath, Hermioen began weaving her weepy lie. Umbridge's dull eyes lit up with glee and she shook with excitement at the words Hermione spoke.
"Take me to this weapon, girl," Umbridge said, and Hermione wailed.
"You don't really want me to show it to them, do you? ( she shot a death glare at the Slytherins around her) Fine! Lets take the whole school down, and show them how it works, so that if you ever annoy any of them they can use it on you! It would serve you right, too!"
That served Hermione well; Umbridge suddenly gave a furtive sweeping of the room, her eyes resting upon Draco for a fraction of a second. She saw a look on his face of pride, pride in Hermione for concocting such a lie. It seemed that Umbridge misinterpreted this look as excitement or even greed, for she then said,
"Fine, it'll just be you, me and potter taking a little walk in the forest. Does that sound alright?" Hermione nodded. And now we're good to go, Hermione thought, and she and Harry were led out of the office at wandpoint and down towards the depths of the forbidden forest.
*** A.N. cough cough I really love reviews, people. :) ***