Confused about the little line about Ron not knowing about the picture?
Just wait a bit longer…. Anyway, here's chapter 30!!! Thirty. I can't
believe it. Wow. Now get on with it, energy…
This chapter will jump ahead a bit. We'll start the morning after Draco's talk to Ron and then go from there.
The day after Draco's revelation to Ron was a Friday, the day before the last quiddich match of the fall term. All of the important Gryffindors were still a bit shocked and stunned over what Draco said and were waiting for the blond Slytherin to make his way to breakfast. It seemed that Draco had already begun his rounds of reconciliation and word had gotten around because the entire room came to a dead silence as he strolled into the Great Hall. Draco made no sign as if he noticed or cared and sat by himself in his new spot at the far end of the Slytherin table. When he began to dive into his stack on pancakes most of the attention fell away and people turned back to their own breakfasts
The gang was discussing their upcoming Transfiguration test when Harry happened to glance up and see a group of Slytherin leave their seats and begin making their way down to Draco.
"We might have trouble here. They don't look like they're going to shake his hand," Harry said.
"His neck maybe, but definitely not his hand," Seamus added.
"I'm not going to sit here and watch this," Harry claimed and stood up and stared dead at the approaching group, now about three quarters to Draco.
Harry stared them down and they hesitated a second. Seamus stood up as well, as did Neville and Ron and Colin. The stare down continued as more and more Gryffindors stood. Hermione, Ginny, Dean (!), and at least a dozen more stood up and dared the Slytherin to act. The much smaller group of Slytherin gathered together and whispered quickly and headed back to their seats. Once they'd returned, Draco mouthed 'thank you' to the still standing Gryffindors. Ron and Harry nodded and sat down.
"That was a very bad thing we just stopped," Hermione said after a bit of silence.
"We didn't stop it, Hermione, we just postponed it," Neville told her. "We aren't around Draco all the time and all they have to do is wait until he's alone."
"Well, then I guess that we'll just have to be around him all the time, then," Harry said. He looked around and saw many unsure faces. "Look everyone, he might deserve to be beaten, but not for that reason. I won't stand by and let Draco be pounded just because he has finally become a human being. I'll do it alone if I have to." Harry went back to eating his pancakes, less than inspired by his friends' lack of interest.
"So now we are Draco-sitters? Cute," Seamus said.
"I guess you could call it that, Seamus," Colin told him.
"No one is forcing you to do this, you realize," Harry told Seamus.
"Oh, I agree with you. I won't let it happen either. It just seems a bit odd you know? Just last week he was a completely different Draco Malfoy, and now he is a new person."
"Tell me about it. I thought he'd be an ass forever," Hermione said, startling them with her colored language.
Breakfast ended and the group broke up to head to class. Ron, Seamus, and Neville stayed behind to escort Draco to his class. Harry was walking with Colin to the younger boy's class and as he was leaving he said, "Thanks guys."
"Not a problem," Seamus told him.
When the three Gryffindors fell in line with Draco, he was a bit surprised. "What are you all doing? Harry just left with Colin, that way," he said, pointing toward the door.
"Well Draco, after the near-incident a little while ago, we decided that it might be in your best interests if you aren't alone with your classmates as much as possible," Ron told him.
Draco was rather astounded. "I hardly think that is necessary. Thank you though."
"It isn't up for debate, Draco. Like it or not, you're stuck with Gryffindor body shields for a while now," Neville told him.
"So even if I tell you that I don't want your help, you'll still be here?"
"Correctamundo, Draco. We aren't going to let your housemates get you if we can at all help it," Seamus said.
"Thanks then. I never figured that I would be worth the trouble. Thanks." as they walked on to class, Draco began apologizing to the lot of them. For the duration of the day, whenever he went anywhere aside from the Slytherin common rooms he had the gold and scarlet escort. Draco did refuse to sleep anywhere but in his own bed at night though.
"I won't run from them. If they want to do something, it won't be unchallenged, believe you me," he told them. "I'll see you all in the morning, whether I like it or not, right?"
"You got it," Colin said and Harry and Ron and Dennis grinned. They Gryffindors returned to their tower and started getting ready for the next morning's match. Gryffindor was to play Slytherin and it was looked to be one hell of a game with all the surrounding circumstances.
The next morning everyone was up early, too excited to sleep in, even on a Saturday. Harry ate a quick breakfast and headed on his way, leaving everyone else in the Great Hall. Draco came down the next morning, looking fine as the day before.
"Maybe they weren't going to do anything to bad after all," Hermione said aloud, not quite believing her own words but wanting to.
"Nay, they've probably just decided that they don't want El Shamrocko after them," Seamus said, cracking Neville up while he flexed in a supposed wrestling pose.
"Yes, Seamus, that is exactly what it is. They're scared of El Shamrocko. I can't say I'd blame them though, really." Hermione was also laughing and nearly in hysterics after Seamus made another series of poses and flexes.
"I'm going to go find out the story. I'll be back." Hermione got up and started walking over to Draco.
"See, I told you all, she is becoming the queen gossip around her. Didn't I?" Seamus said and everyone laughed a bit at Hermione's expense.
Hermione returned a short while later and told them that the other Slytherin left him completely alone the previous night but he refused to say much more. She relented, saying that they'd be keeping an eye on him just the same from their booth.
"Maybe he wants something to happen." Ginny said as she stabbed her eggs.
"I'd hope he'd have the sense not to--" Hermione's reply was cut short as the morning mail flew in from the ceiling. Hermione slumped a bit in her seat when she saw the same owl as usual fly to her. It was from the hospital and she knew in her heart that there was still no change and it would be a near copy of the previous letters she'd been receiving. She took the letter and gave the owl a strip of bacon. She stuck the letter in her robes to open away from everyone else.
Also getting mail that morning was a certain Draco Malfoy. His father's owl flew gracefully to him and simply dropped the letter in front of Draco and left. 'That's probably not good. Not a howler, but not good.' he thought. He opened the letter and read the short note inside.
"Were I not extremely busy at the moment I would already be at Hogwarts to get a firsthand explanation of exactly what the hell you're doing. You might want to rethink your recent ways, Draco. You can rest assured that you will not join us in Bavaria and remain at Hogwarts over the holiday break."
That was it. Busy? What was his father doing that was so important to make him miss a chance to beat and berate his son? Likely nothing good. Draco tucked the letter under his robes and finished his eggs, hoping that his father stayed busy until the day he died. Draco did scoff at the last line. Oh, no, he wouldn't be spending the holidays with his family. "Big loss there," he said quietly. Draco finished and headed back to his common room to get ready for the match.
Breakfast broke up and nearly the entire school made their way out to the quiddich field for the match. Both teams made their ways out to the field in completely different fashions. Harry and the other Gryffindors were all together cheering and pumping themselves up. The Slytherins were separated, Draco walking about ten feet behind the rest of the team. Not once did they so much cast a glance in his direction.
"Uh oh. They're shunning him," Hermione said to her classmates and fellow Draco-sitters. "You don't think that they'd--"
"I doubt it Hermione, they want to win too badly to risk anything now. Draco might be persona-non-grata, but he is still a very good seeker. Not as good as Harry, of course." Seamus looked at Colin as he said the last part, making sure that Colin knew that he wasn't putting Draco and Harry in the same category.
"I hope you're right, Seamus," she answered back.
The match began and it quickly lived up to the ugly game everyone thought that they'd see. Without a doubt one of the most brutal matches in years, every point was paid for with much pain and suffering. After nearly an hour of no snitch, Gryffindor clung to a very narrow 20 point lead, 90- 70.
Another five minutes passed and Hermione's prediction began to come true. One of the ogre-ish Slytherin beaters missed a routine bludger and let it sail unabated to Draco. He barely avoided it and had to dive a good forty feet upside down. Draco looked at the beater and only got a shrug as a reply.
"Oh my!!" Hermione said. "He missed that on purpose. I know he did."
"You might be right," Colin said as he waved his 'Go Harry' flag.
Draco narrowly avoided another 'missed' bludger and was starting to get very worried. He searched in vain to find the snitch and end the match before he got killed. He searched fruitlessly though.
The Slytherins apparently changed tactics right about then as instead of simply 'missing' bludgers coming Draco's way, they began to hit them at him, doing everything in their power to de-broom their own seeker.
Harry was flying in relatively clear skies when he finally spotted the snitch. He glanced out of the corner of his eyes as a Slytherin seeker swung his bat and knocked a bludger not at him, but at Draco, from nearly point-blank range. Draco was intent on following Harry so he wasn't paying the least bit of attention. The bludger caught him right below the armpit on his left side, throwing him from the broom with amazing force. Harry saw the Slytherin beater grin evilly and fly off. The gold blur of the snitch sailed ahead, but Harry ignored it and dove after Draco.
He caught up with Draco about fifty feet from the ground and grabbed him around the waist. Harry pulled up and managed to get the seemingly unconscious Draco on the broom in front of him. The announcer was going mad at that point, screaming about how terrible that was and how that beater should be expelled and all. When Harry caught Draco the announcer called "And Harry catches the Slytherin snitch. Not bad Harry, but the one you want is gold in color, not green."
Harry landed and set Draco on the ground by the waiting medical staff. He took off to end the game and did so shortly thereafter. During the Gryffindor celebration, Snape handed out weeks worth of detention to the entire Slytherin team for their actions and inactions. The nurse lifted his robes up and saw a huge bruise forming and a few cracked ribs. Draco was carried off to the hospital wing, leaving them wondering how he would be.
"He'll be fine, Ginny," Hermione told her as Ginny was almost crying.
"That was just so wrong. Did you see him?"
"Aye, Ginny. It was. Don't worry. Those marks won't go unpunished. I promise." Seamus was pissed. Actually, pissed is too mild a word. Spitting nails is closer. He set off to find Harry and a few others.
Time passed and most of the Gryffindors had returned to their common room and begun to celebrate properly. They were joined about half an hour later by Seamus and company who looked quite smug about their work. They gave no details however, only nods that something had happened. Ron took a chair in the corner and sat by himself. Hermione looked over at him and began to get concerned. She couldn't recall him saying but five words all day, and there he was sitting by himself. She took a short stroll over to him and sat down beside him.
"Ron, what's wrong?"
"Nothing really Hermione, I just don't feel too good today."
"Let me ask you again, Ron. What's wrong? Don't give me a generic answer either."
He gave her a quarter of a smile. "I'm just sad again. Sort of like before."
"Is that all?" she asked, pressing for more details.
"Well," he considered telling her it was, but he figured what the hell and continued. "sometimes I seem to forget what I've been doing or even where I've been recently. I'll fin myself in the library or in a supply closet and have no idea how I got there. I 'awoke' to find myself carrying a wooden table up a flight of stairs a few days ago." Hermione looked very concerned. "It doesn't happen very often, just every now and then. The sadness is bothering me more."
"Ron, I want you to go and see the nurse. I believe you are suffering from depression. I mean it Ron, I really do. It isn't something to be taken lightly."
"Hermione, I promise you that if I don't feel any better after the holidays, you can take me down there yourself. I just don't want to spend Christmas in a hospital, you understand, right?"
"I guess Ron. But if you get really bad, please come and talk to someone. Anyone, Ron. Promise?"
"Sure. Now go have a good time, Hermione and try not to worry about me too much."
"Someone has to, Ron" she told herself as she was walking away. She spent an hour celebrating and then made her way to the library to try to find out more about Harry's stone. She'd looked for hours already and found nothing. She was bound and determined to know what it was soon.
She had spent nearly two hours searching through some of the moldiest and largest books in the library and was getting increasingly frustrated when she heard a soft voice over her shoulder.
"Hermione? May I talk to you a moment?"
Hermione turned around to see none other than Draco Malfoy standing before her dressed in a simple black robe with an obvious bandage under one side. "Draco? Are you well enough to be out of the hospital already?"
"Well, maybe not, but I told them I was. They gave me something for the pain and the ribs have already started healing, but I couldn't stay in there anymore. I sort of snuck out when the room was empty." he said quietly.
"So what brings you up here, Draco?"
"I was taking a stroll, since I really don't want to go back to my common room yet," he told her.
"If it were up to me, you'd not go back at all. You'd stay out of there forever."
"Thank you for your caring Hermione. That is something I've not quite gotten used to yet. And that brings me to something else I've been meaning to do now for a bit."
Draco pulled up a chair and sat across from Hermione, wincing as he did so. "Hermione, I want to apologize to you for everything I've done to you. All the terrible jokes I've pulled, and most of all the horrible things I've said." Both their minds went back in time to the day in Diagon Alley. Hermione's eyes got a little moist, and Draco looked for her reply.
"Thanks, Draco. It really does mean something. When Ron first told me what you told him that night, I couldn't believe it at first."
"I know. I could hardly believe it myself. I just discovered who I was that day and when he came across me in the Astronomy Tower, I had just made up my mind. He was my first." he was quiet for a second, and then started to laugh until he hurt. "Not my first like that, I mean, but my first apology."
Hermione laughed with him and once they'd settled down, she asked a question. "Draco, you said he was in the Astronomy Tower, right?"
"Uh huh. Why?"
"I'm just wondering why he'd go there. He said he was going to walk outside."
"He sort of stormed in the room, looking a little desperate. He didn't see me at first because I was over by the railings when he came in. he was looking around and called out some name I've not heard before."
"What name was that?"
"Surlain, Burtain? Something like that. I honestly don't remember exactly what it was."
"That seems awfully familiar for some reason." Hermione couldn't place it so she filed it under her mental list of things to do. She and Draco talked on for another few minutes until they decided it was dinner time.
"Draco, would you like to join us tonight?"
"I think I'd like that, Hermione. Thank you." the two of them left the library and returned to the Gryffindor common room.
Okay, sorry for the long delay. I'll tell all when I post again (hopefully later tonite.) I'll just say that right now, things haven't been too wonderful in energy's world….. I just had to post something though. Get ready for Dumbledore's announcement and a few other fun things as the final acts begin to come together….
energy
This chapter will jump ahead a bit. We'll start the morning after Draco's talk to Ron and then go from there.
The day after Draco's revelation to Ron was a Friday, the day before the last quiddich match of the fall term. All of the important Gryffindors were still a bit shocked and stunned over what Draco said and were waiting for the blond Slytherin to make his way to breakfast. It seemed that Draco had already begun his rounds of reconciliation and word had gotten around because the entire room came to a dead silence as he strolled into the Great Hall. Draco made no sign as if he noticed or cared and sat by himself in his new spot at the far end of the Slytherin table. When he began to dive into his stack on pancakes most of the attention fell away and people turned back to their own breakfasts
The gang was discussing their upcoming Transfiguration test when Harry happened to glance up and see a group of Slytherin leave their seats and begin making their way down to Draco.
"We might have trouble here. They don't look like they're going to shake his hand," Harry said.
"His neck maybe, but definitely not his hand," Seamus added.
"I'm not going to sit here and watch this," Harry claimed and stood up and stared dead at the approaching group, now about three quarters to Draco.
Harry stared them down and they hesitated a second. Seamus stood up as well, as did Neville and Ron and Colin. The stare down continued as more and more Gryffindors stood. Hermione, Ginny, Dean (!), and at least a dozen more stood up and dared the Slytherin to act. The much smaller group of Slytherin gathered together and whispered quickly and headed back to their seats. Once they'd returned, Draco mouthed 'thank you' to the still standing Gryffindors. Ron and Harry nodded and sat down.
"That was a very bad thing we just stopped," Hermione said after a bit of silence.
"We didn't stop it, Hermione, we just postponed it," Neville told her. "We aren't around Draco all the time and all they have to do is wait until he's alone."
"Well, then I guess that we'll just have to be around him all the time, then," Harry said. He looked around and saw many unsure faces. "Look everyone, he might deserve to be beaten, but not for that reason. I won't stand by and let Draco be pounded just because he has finally become a human being. I'll do it alone if I have to." Harry went back to eating his pancakes, less than inspired by his friends' lack of interest.
"So now we are Draco-sitters? Cute," Seamus said.
"I guess you could call it that, Seamus," Colin told him.
"No one is forcing you to do this, you realize," Harry told Seamus.
"Oh, I agree with you. I won't let it happen either. It just seems a bit odd you know? Just last week he was a completely different Draco Malfoy, and now he is a new person."
"Tell me about it. I thought he'd be an ass forever," Hermione said, startling them with her colored language.
Breakfast ended and the group broke up to head to class. Ron, Seamus, and Neville stayed behind to escort Draco to his class. Harry was walking with Colin to the younger boy's class and as he was leaving he said, "Thanks guys."
"Not a problem," Seamus told him.
When the three Gryffindors fell in line with Draco, he was a bit surprised. "What are you all doing? Harry just left with Colin, that way," he said, pointing toward the door.
"Well Draco, after the near-incident a little while ago, we decided that it might be in your best interests if you aren't alone with your classmates as much as possible," Ron told him.
Draco was rather astounded. "I hardly think that is necessary. Thank you though."
"It isn't up for debate, Draco. Like it or not, you're stuck with Gryffindor body shields for a while now," Neville told him.
"So even if I tell you that I don't want your help, you'll still be here?"
"Correctamundo, Draco. We aren't going to let your housemates get you if we can at all help it," Seamus said.
"Thanks then. I never figured that I would be worth the trouble. Thanks." as they walked on to class, Draco began apologizing to the lot of them. For the duration of the day, whenever he went anywhere aside from the Slytherin common rooms he had the gold and scarlet escort. Draco did refuse to sleep anywhere but in his own bed at night though.
"I won't run from them. If they want to do something, it won't be unchallenged, believe you me," he told them. "I'll see you all in the morning, whether I like it or not, right?"
"You got it," Colin said and Harry and Ron and Dennis grinned. They Gryffindors returned to their tower and started getting ready for the next morning's match. Gryffindor was to play Slytherin and it was looked to be one hell of a game with all the surrounding circumstances.
The next morning everyone was up early, too excited to sleep in, even on a Saturday. Harry ate a quick breakfast and headed on his way, leaving everyone else in the Great Hall. Draco came down the next morning, looking fine as the day before.
"Maybe they weren't going to do anything to bad after all," Hermione said aloud, not quite believing her own words but wanting to.
"Nay, they've probably just decided that they don't want El Shamrocko after them," Seamus said, cracking Neville up while he flexed in a supposed wrestling pose.
"Yes, Seamus, that is exactly what it is. They're scared of El Shamrocko. I can't say I'd blame them though, really." Hermione was also laughing and nearly in hysterics after Seamus made another series of poses and flexes.
"I'm going to go find out the story. I'll be back." Hermione got up and started walking over to Draco.
"See, I told you all, she is becoming the queen gossip around her. Didn't I?" Seamus said and everyone laughed a bit at Hermione's expense.
Hermione returned a short while later and told them that the other Slytherin left him completely alone the previous night but he refused to say much more. She relented, saying that they'd be keeping an eye on him just the same from their booth.
"Maybe he wants something to happen." Ginny said as she stabbed her eggs.
"I'd hope he'd have the sense not to--" Hermione's reply was cut short as the morning mail flew in from the ceiling. Hermione slumped a bit in her seat when she saw the same owl as usual fly to her. It was from the hospital and she knew in her heart that there was still no change and it would be a near copy of the previous letters she'd been receiving. She took the letter and gave the owl a strip of bacon. She stuck the letter in her robes to open away from everyone else.
Also getting mail that morning was a certain Draco Malfoy. His father's owl flew gracefully to him and simply dropped the letter in front of Draco and left. 'That's probably not good. Not a howler, but not good.' he thought. He opened the letter and read the short note inside.
"Were I not extremely busy at the moment I would already be at Hogwarts to get a firsthand explanation of exactly what the hell you're doing. You might want to rethink your recent ways, Draco. You can rest assured that you will not join us in Bavaria and remain at Hogwarts over the holiday break."
That was it. Busy? What was his father doing that was so important to make him miss a chance to beat and berate his son? Likely nothing good. Draco tucked the letter under his robes and finished his eggs, hoping that his father stayed busy until the day he died. Draco did scoff at the last line. Oh, no, he wouldn't be spending the holidays with his family. "Big loss there," he said quietly. Draco finished and headed back to his common room to get ready for the match.
Breakfast broke up and nearly the entire school made their way out to the quiddich field for the match. Both teams made their ways out to the field in completely different fashions. Harry and the other Gryffindors were all together cheering and pumping themselves up. The Slytherins were separated, Draco walking about ten feet behind the rest of the team. Not once did they so much cast a glance in his direction.
"Uh oh. They're shunning him," Hermione said to her classmates and fellow Draco-sitters. "You don't think that they'd--"
"I doubt it Hermione, they want to win too badly to risk anything now. Draco might be persona-non-grata, but he is still a very good seeker. Not as good as Harry, of course." Seamus looked at Colin as he said the last part, making sure that Colin knew that he wasn't putting Draco and Harry in the same category.
"I hope you're right, Seamus," she answered back.
The match began and it quickly lived up to the ugly game everyone thought that they'd see. Without a doubt one of the most brutal matches in years, every point was paid for with much pain and suffering. After nearly an hour of no snitch, Gryffindor clung to a very narrow 20 point lead, 90- 70.
Another five minutes passed and Hermione's prediction began to come true. One of the ogre-ish Slytherin beaters missed a routine bludger and let it sail unabated to Draco. He barely avoided it and had to dive a good forty feet upside down. Draco looked at the beater and only got a shrug as a reply.
"Oh my!!" Hermione said. "He missed that on purpose. I know he did."
"You might be right," Colin said as he waved his 'Go Harry' flag.
Draco narrowly avoided another 'missed' bludger and was starting to get very worried. He searched in vain to find the snitch and end the match before he got killed. He searched fruitlessly though.
The Slytherins apparently changed tactics right about then as instead of simply 'missing' bludgers coming Draco's way, they began to hit them at him, doing everything in their power to de-broom their own seeker.
Harry was flying in relatively clear skies when he finally spotted the snitch. He glanced out of the corner of his eyes as a Slytherin seeker swung his bat and knocked a bludger not at him, but at Draco, from nearly point-blank range. Draco was intent on following Harry so he wasn't paying the least bit of attention. The bludger caught him right below the armpit on his left side, throwing him from the broom with amazing force. Harry saw the Slytherin beater grin evilly and fly off. The gold blur of the snitch sailed ahead, but Harry ignored it and dove after Draco.
He caught up with Draco about fifty feet from the ground and grabbed him around the waist. Harry pulled up and managed to get the seemingly unconscious Draco on the broom in front of him. The announcer was going mad at that point, screaming about how terrible that was and how that beater should be expelled and all. When Harry caught Draco the announcer called "And Harry catches the Slytherin snitch. Not bad Harry, but the one you want is gold in color, not green."
Harry landed and set Draco on the ground by the waiting medical staff. He took off to end the game and did so shortly thereafter. During the Gryffindor celebration, Snape handed out weeks worth of detention to the entire Slytherin team for their actions and inactions. The nurse lifted his robes up and saw a huge bruise forming and a few cracked ribs. Draco was carried off to the hospital wing, leaving them wondering how he would be.
"He'll be fine, Ginny," Hermione told her as Ginny was almost crying.
"That was just so wrong. Did you see him?"
"Aye, Ginny. It was. Don't worry. Those marks won't go unpunished. I promise." Seamus was pissed. Actually, pissed is too mild a word. Spitting nails is closer. He set off to find Harry and a few others.
Time passed and most of the Gryffindors had returned to their common room and begun to celebrate properly. They were joined about half an hour later by Seamus and company who looked quite smug about their work. They gave no details however, only nods that something had happened. Ron took a chair in the corner and sat by himself. Hermione looked over at him and began to get concerned. She couldn't recall him saying but five words all day, and there he was sitting by himself. She took a short stroll over to him and sat down beside him.
"Ron, what's wrong?"
"Nothing really Hermione, I just don't feel too good today."
"Let me ask you again, Ron. What's wrong? Don't give me a generic answer either."
He gave her a quarter of a smile. "I'm just sad again. Sort of like before."
"Is that all?" she asked, pressing for more details.
"Well," he considered telling her it was, but he figured what the hell and continued. "sometimes I seem to forget what I've been doing or even where I've been recently. I'll fin myself in the library or in a supply closet and have no idea how I got there. I 'awoke' to find myself carrying a wooden table up a flight of stairs a few days ago." Hermione looked very concerned. "It doesn't happen very often, just every now and then. The sadness is bothering me more."
"Ron, I want you to go and see the nurse. I believe you are suffering from depression. I mean it Ron, I really do. It isn't something to be taken lightly."
"Hermione, I promise you that if I don't feel any better after the holidays, you can take me down there yourself. I just don't want to spend Christmas in a hospital, you understand, right?"
"I guess Ron. But if you get really bad, please come and talk to someone. Anyone, Ron. Promise?"
"Sure. Now go have a good time, Hermione and try not to worry about me too much."
"Someone has to, Ron" she told herself as she was walking away. She spent an hour celebrating and then made her way to the library to try to find out more about Harry's stone. She'd looked for hours already and found nothing. She was bound and determined to know what it was soon.
She had spent nearly two hours searching through some of the moldiest and largest books in the library and was getting increasingly frustrated when she heard a soft voice over her shoulder.
"Hermione? May I talk to you a moment?"
Hermione turned around to see none other than Draco Malfoy standing before her dressed in a simple black robe with an obvious bandage under one side. "Draco? Are you well enough to be out of the hospital already?"
"Well, maybe not, but I told them I was. They gave me something for the pain and the ribs have already started healing, but I couldn't stay in there anymore. I sort of snuck out when the room was empty." he said quietly.
"So what brings you up here, Draco?"
"I was taking a stroll, since I really don't want to go back to my common room yet," he told her.
"If it were up to me, you'd not go back at all. You'd stay out of there forever."
"Thank you for your caring Hermione. That is something I've not quite gotten used to yet. And that brings me to something else I've been meaning to do now for a bit."
Draco pulled up a chair and sat across from Hermione, wincing as he did so. "Hermione, I want to apologize to you for everything I've done to you. All the terrible jokes I've pulled, and most of all the horrible things I've said." Both their minds went back in time to the day in Diagon Alley. Hermione's eyes got a little moist, and Draco looked for her reply.
"Thanks, Draco. It really does mean something. When Ron first told me what you told him that night, I couldn't believe it at first."
"I know. I could hardly believe it myself. I just discovered who I was that day and when he came across me in the Astronomy Tower, I had just made up my mind. He was my first." he was quiet for a second, and then started to laugh until he hurt. "Not my first like that, I mean, but my first apology."
Hermione laughed with him and once they'd settled down, she asked a question. "Draco, you said he was in the Astronomy Tower, right?"
"Uh huh. Why?"
"I'm just wondering why he'd go there. He said he was going to walk outside."
"He sort of stormed in the room, looking a little desperate. He didn't see me at first because I was over by the railings when he came in. he was looking around and called out some name I've not heard before."
"What name was that?"
"Surlain, Burtain? Something like that. I honestly don't remember exactly what it was."
"That seems awfully familiar for some reason." Hermione couldn't place it so she filed it under her mental list of things to do. She and Draco talked on for another few minutes until they decided it was dinner time.
"Draco, would you like to join us tonight?"
"I think I'd like that, Hermione. Thank you." the two of them left the library and returned to the Gryffindor common room.
Okay, sorry for the long delay. I'll tell all when I post again (hopefully later tonite.) I'll just say that right now, things haven't been too wonderful in energy's world….. I just had to post something though. Get ready for Dumbledore's announcement and a few other fun things as the final acts begin to come together….
energy