The morning starts poorly.
Very poorly, indeed.
Hermione is barely awake, sleep being stolen from her as the result of an intense heat bleating down on her from above. She is drenched in a thick sheen of sweat and she can feel rivets of it accumulating under breasts and on her forehead tickling her as they form pathways over her skin.
It feels as though someone has moved the small fireplace that sits in corner of her and Ginny's double room and placed it directly above her.
She kicks at her covers until they are pooled by her feet hoping for a reprieve and not being ready to wake just yet. Behind her closed eyelids she can almost imagine the flickering orange and yellow hues of the flame above her.
Until she realizes she isn't imagining anything at all.
Very real flames are engulfing the curtains at the top of her canopy and they are posing a very real threat to her person.
"Ginny!" She shouts, rolling carelessly off the side of her bed to avoid the flames and landing in a sweaty heap on the floor. She jumps up and retreats to the farthest corner of the room continuing to shout at Ginny as she does.
The blasted red head sleeps like the dead, just like her brother.
Hermione scans the sweltering room for her wand in a desperate attempt to stop the fire and she barely has time to register that, strangely enough, the flames seem to be contained to the very tops of both her and Ginny's canopy's, stopping and licking the edges of some invisible barrier.
Hermione, having had it with the day already lobs a shoe at Ginny's head.
"Bloody hell, 'Mione." Ginny mumbles, agitated until she opens her bleary eyes to the same fear inducing sight Hermione had the misfortune of waking up to. "MERLIN!"
Ginny joins Hermione on the far side of the room, wand at the ready.
"Aquamenti!" A jet of water shoots from the tip of Ginny's wand effectively dousing the fire above her bed.
"I can't find my wand!" Hermione shouts over the roar of the fire.
"It's stuck in your hair!" Ginny shouts.
Hermione vaguely remembers falling asleep while rereading Extreme Incantations by Violeta Stitch by wand light and sure enough when she frantically reaches her hands up into her hair, there it is - her wand, tangled in a mass of matted curls.
She rips at it, barely feeling the pain and once freed proceeds to follow Ginny's lead, aiming her wand towards the fire. Between the two of them they make quick work of it.
With the threat gone it leaves the two stunned witches panting in unison and eyeing each other with a dissociated sense of awe.
"How in the world did we manage to do that?" Ginny asks between gasps.
Hermione, massaging the spot on her head where she is certain she now has a bald spot, answers Ginny's question with another.
"Did you notice how the flames didn't spread? How it kept itself contained to the top of the canopy?"
"Only you would notice something that inconsequential during a life threatening moment!" Ginny might be laughing or she might be coughing - it's probably an odd mixture of both.
Hermione isn't listening, though. She's crawling back onto her bed to inspect the damage and when she turns onto her back she sees something quite odd.
"I don't think it's inconsequential, Ginny. Look, just there!" Hermione points upwards and Ginny joins her on the bed looking up towards the underside of her abused canopy, where words are forming in the distinct shade of burning embers.
Ginny shuffles off of Hermione's bed and leaps onto her own, flinging herself down on her back with a wide smile. "It's from the judges - it has to be."
"Not a very good charm." Hermione says haughtily. "I can barely make out the words."
"Patience, 'Mione."
True to Ginny's advice the words start to burn brighter and for a moment Hermione thinks the fire might catch again.
Tonight. Midnight.
Voldy's Drop.
Swimming costumes encouraged.
"Merlin's beard!" Ginny curses.
Hermione would return the sentiment if she wasn't so preoccupied with monitoring the potential of another fire. Eventually, the embers die and the words vanish.
"I hope the judges are going to use some of the money from this years lot to purchase new curtains." Hermione isn't a morning person to begin with and today's start to the morning has only reinforced that sentiment.
"Honestly Hermione," Ginny laughs, "A simple incantation will do the trick. Don't rain on my parade -" Hermione doesn't miss the pun. "This is the first challenge and I'm determined to not let you ruin my excitement."
Hermione whips her head to glare at Ginny.
"Your excitement? Ginny, there is a very logical reason why no one goes up to that drop!"
Voldy's Drop, which used to be called Devil's Drop has an infamous history. A few years before Harry's mother and father were at Hogwarts a boy died tragically after being dared to jump from the highest point into the Black Lake below. The Headmaster at the time came under intense scrutiny and was forced to resign - the wards around Voldy's Drop were near impenetrable now and if any student was caught trying to find away around them it was immediate expulsion.
The Devil's Drop acquired a name change during the first war on account of the Devil and Voldemort being nearly synonymous at the time, and it became Voldemort's Drop. Then after the Battle of Hogwarts and the mad man in question was defeated, the students started using a shortened version of the name, adapted from one of Peeves many songs.
Voldy.
Hermione supposed it was rather appropriate given the circumstances. Tom Riddle had chosen his new name, a name that struck fear into the hearts of millions - and now it had been reduced to a nickname that one might name a troublesome new kitten.
Hermione suspected the Dark Lord would be rolling in his grave if he had one.
"The very same reason the judges chose it as a challenge." Ginny argued.
"It's not a game."
"Yes, actually, it is."
"Assuming you avoid the rocks at the bottom of the drop, which is highly unlikely might I add, chances are you'll nick yourself on the jagged ones at the bottom attracting not only the merpeople, but the Giant Squid as well!"
"The Giant Squid is friendly."
"It's still a predator, Ginny." Hermione was aggravated with Ginny's cavalier attitude. "If it smells blood in the water it will do what predators do - it is a carnivore."
"You aren't going to talk me out of this, so stop trying."
End of conversation.
They silently dressed for breakfast.
.
The Great Hall was buzzing with excitement. All of the seventh years apparently having no issues with nearly being set ablaze had set aside whatever they'd felt upon waking and chose excitement instead.
Hermione, on the other hand, chose irritability.
As Ginny, Ron and Harry chatted about the upcoming nights events Hermione grabbed the handful of mail that had been dropped on the table, shoved the envelopes into the pockets of her robes and set out for the library without a backwards glance.
In classes, Hermione found herself stumped that the Professors had no idea about the dangerous game at play. She had heard the word 'panic' uttered not once, not twice but three times in just one class. Either the Professor's heads were in the clouds or they simply didn't want to see what was happening before their very eyes.
Either way, it was hardly any of her concern, besides the fact the judges had already tried to kill them all this morning. She had resolved herself to keeping her head down, preferably in a good book and shutting out anything and everything that had to do with Panic.
.
As the day drew to a close Hermione sat on her bed watching as Ginny tried on an overabundance of swimming costumes.
"If I wear one that's more revealing maybe I'll distract one of the players." She muses, pushing her breasts together in a tiny blue number that looked to be about three sizes too small.
"Yes, being singlehandedly accountable for someone's death sounds like a superb strategy." Says Hermione in a tone most often reserved for a different Weasley.
"I'm only joking."
The look on her face tells Hermione something different.
"Well, I guess this one will have to do - it's nearly eleven-thirty and it's quite a trek up to Voldy's Drop. Coming down to the Commons to see us off?"
The Gryffindor Common Room is where she meets Ron and Harry, pulling Ron in for a bone crushing hug that has him gasping and turning red.
"Blimey, Hermione!" He laughs, "You'll kill me before the Drop does."
The joke has everyone laughing, because everyone is in the Common Room, preparing to leave - apparently she is the only sane person left because she is the only one who isn't going to watch or to play.
Sooner than she would like, everyone is filing out the door, quieting their voices and lightening their footsteps. Harry squeezes her hand reassuringly before filing out after the crowd and then she is alone, having perhaps just seen two of her friends for the last time.
She shakes the thought violently out of her head and nearly runs up the spiral staircase and back to the confines of her room where she paces for longer than she would ever care to admits, reads the same line in her book eight times and finally reaches into the pockets of her school robes to check the mail she had shoved in them earlier that morning.
A piece of muggle mail caught her attention immediately, it was from the bank where the mortgage to her parents house was held. It had a large read stamp on the front that read: OVERDUE.
Forclosure Bank Letter
Dear Miss Hermione Granger,
Under the terms of the mortgage or Deed of Trust securing your Loan, The Bank of London, hereby notifies you of the following:
1. You are in default because you have failed to pay the required monthly instalments commencing with the payment due 02/16/1999.
2. As of 06/30/1999, total monthly payments (including principal, interest, and escrow if applicable), late fees, insufficient funds (NSF) fees, and other fees and advances due under the terms of your loan documents in the total amount are past due. This past- due amount is itemized below. If applicable, your account may have additional escrow amounts that have been paid out and are due on the Loan.
The letter goes on to list an impossibly high amount due.
At least they itemized it for her, she thinks irritably.
How kind.
There isn't any way she can make up the payments and she thought she had more time to come up with a plan - graduate, get a job, start paying when she actually had some money to spare.
The letter falls from her hands, fluttering to the floor as she imagines the bank foreclosing on her house in a few short months. Her childhood home, the home of her happiest memories, the home of her parents.
Her parents!
What if the healers found a way to reverse their loss of memory and they finally came home? They would have nothing to come home to besides the knowledge that their only daughter, who's existence she had erased from their minds, had lost their home in the absence she had forced upon them without consent.
It was unacceptable.
And that was the exact moment the panic set in.
.
Draco Malfoy watches as the seventh year students are corralled around the shore just across from the Drop. The excitement is tangible and he might almost have cracked a genuine smile, an impossibly rare occurrence for him. Everyone chatted animatedly as they waited for the festivities to start and the rest of the players to decide whether they were in or out.
Draco had been the first player to surrender his wand to Lee Jordan, making him the official first player of this years Panic. Ginny Weasley followed shortly after, then her brother.
Another Gryffindor after that.
It took a few more minutes before his good friend Blaise handed his wand over to Panic's moderator.
The Zabini's hadn't been as fortunate as the Malfoy's, having all of their fortunes seized after the war and dispersed within the Ministry. With his mother in Azkaban and his father dead, he was left with nothing and no one to care for him - he had entered the game out of desperation.
He expected the same of the Weasley's.
The next to enter the game is a girl from his own House who's name he didn't think he'd ever cared to ask for.
Then, a portly boy from Ravenclaw.
Dean Thomas was the last player to hand over his wand, his hands trembling as he did.
It wasn't surprising that the majority of the players were from Gryffindor - the game was geared towards their tendencies anyway. The boy from Ravenclaw was a surprise, Draco expected that the intelligence and wit they constantly boasted about would steer them away from entering a competition like this.
No Hufflepuffs, of course.
A solid crop of players, no one that had him scared he might lose, though. It was unfortunate that Potter wouldn't be playing as Draco missed their petty rivalry and would delight in another chance to best the Golden Boy at something.
Lee Jordan raised his wand to his throat and his voice boomed over the quarry-like section of the Black Lake.
"Ladies and gentlemen! Welcome to Panic!" The cheers rose around Draco like a symphony and Pansy Parkinson saddled in beside him with a wink before joining in on the cheers. "I'll be your host this year, lucky for you! First, let's go over the rules!"
Draco eyed the three jumping off points of the drop while Jordan prattled on about rules everyone already knew. The first jump was worth the smallest amount of points, the second jump - significantly higher than first warranted a significant jump in points as well, and finally the highest jump.
Voldy's Drop.
Stupid name.
An insane jump for an insane amount of points.
"As you all know you must surrender your wands before every challenge - no magic is permitted! You have one emergency pass, you must give word to me no later than one hour before the scheduled challenge - I wouldn't recommend it though, folks, every point matters! Lastly, the points system and allocation of those points are completely up to the judges - you don't know who they are but they know you, and they are always watching!"
Draco can't image that anyone would attempt the third jump, most would stick to the second and so that's where he heads when his name is called first.
A small orb of light is charmed to follow him up the path so he doesn't trip and fall and risk dying without anyone being able to watch the spectacle of it.
He stops at the second jump, watching his peers below as they fall silent for the first time since they gathered and without having to think, without any fanfare, he leaps into the darkness.
He's played Quidditch while higher off the ground than this, granted he's never leapt purposely from his broom before but it doesn't matter the minute he hits the icy water. It could be the dead of summer and the water in the Black Lake would't jump above freezing.
He resurfaces and everyone is cheering wildly, the sound echoing over the water. Draco isn't used to people cheering for him and it sparks a few unusual feelings. It doesn't feel as rewarding as he once thought it might. He can recall how his jealousy ate at him when watching Dumbledore award Harry Potter the points required for Gryffindor to win the House Cup or watching him win the Tri-Wizard Tournament.
Though he supposes that last win was a tad bittersweet given the circumstances.
When he approaches the shore Lee Jordan hands him his wand and Draco performs a drying spell to ward off the chill that settles over his skin. He allows a few students to clap him on the back and offer their shallow accolades before settling back in beside Pansy who offers him a drink in celebration.
Ginny Weasley goes next and flings herself from the second jump letting loose a scream that sounds more like something you might expect to come out of a trolls mouth.
Ron Weasley is second, for a moment it looks like he might use the first jump but he's obviously thinking about points and saving face when he turns and heads towards the second.
Another Gryffindor who is announced as Terry Boot uses the first jump and then Blaise from the second. Daphne Greengrass, the girl from Slytherin follows in Terry Boot's footsteps as does the boy from Ravenclaw who's name still remains a mystery because Draco isn't paying attention when his name is announced.
He doesn't see Dean Thomas' jump either, because something from the corner of his eye catches his attention. A girl emerges from the path leading to the quarry, red faced and panting as though she had run all the way here, and unbelievably he recognizes that it is Hermione Granger.
His drink forgotten, his spine stiff, he watches her make her way through the crowd in a modest green swimming costume and denim shorts. She has completely captured his undivided attention as he watches Potter wave to her with a friendly smile that turns surprised when she brushes right past him, slams her wand into Lee Jordan's palm and walks right past him on her way up to the jumps.
He catches her eye as she walks past, but only for a brief moment. He hopes she sees the smirk he is wearing just for her.
He's only slightly disappointed that she hadn't arrived earlier to watch his jump, maybe she might have been impressed.
As it turns out, he is the one gearing up to be impressed as he watches her slow ascent up the cliff, the slight glow from the orb of light illuminating what little he can see of her determined face.
He watches her pass the first jump . . .
Well done, he thinks.
He watches her pass the second . . .
She must have missed the opening.
He watches her slowly approach the edge of Voldy's Drop and peer over, he can see her chest heaving from here. The orb flickers beside her, as if telling her to hurry up and everyone around him is silent, he can hear murmurs of disbelief but they are quelled instantly when she backs up so far that no one can see her anymore.
Draco can't remember when he got to his feet and he doesn't remember walking in a daze to the very edge of the shoreline, so close that his feet get wet.
The air is thick in his throat, the way it feels right before a thunderstorm devastates a city.
His eyes don't leave the Drop.
Her mop of unruly curls is the first thing he sees, she's taking a running leap and then suddenly she is over the edge.
Draco Malfoy doesn't think he's ever seen anything more beautiful than the Golden Girl taking flight.