Discoveries and Danger

Disclaimer: The wonderful Draco, Hermione, Ron, Harry… just about everything here does not belong to me. Except the plot. And the Glacios curse.

A/N: WOW!!! 100 reviews! *does strange little dance* Thank you everyone!!!  Reviewers: KAOS, Sianna (x2), HB, Jaime Wood, iceheart-04, Amythest-Angel462, aries, Sanaria, Cheshire, Dawn, Amo il ragazzo, soul of fyre158, Starlight, kath, Rowna (Seria, EvilFireWitch, hyper_shark, L.Meylan, ilovespike-02, MoonDancerCat, shibbydragongirl, Goddess-Isis-112, Mandemi, Christa, Pallida Mors, XtremeNusiance, M-chan, and Tinuviel Henneth!

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This chapter may be a bit confusing – it flips through a few weeks of time and has a dream sequence in italics at the end.

~*~

Days passed. By the end of the week, Hermione could no longer say honestly that she hated Draco. True, he was annoying, insulting, cruel and unkind – but the malice had vanished.

They were still working slowly through the Laekalia. Much to Hermione's annoyance, and Draco's glee, the Tenebrae (called Zyax) had not been murdered, and was in fact becoming one of Azura's friends.

'They still won't get together.' she said sulkily.

'Oh yes they will.' Draco replied, a smug grin on his face.  Hermione glared at him. 'You might as well admit it, Granger. Dig out those five Galleons.'

She glared at him. 'You can't be certain they'll get together unless you've read the book before.' Draco wore an extremely crafty grin, scribbling neatly on a piece of paper. Realisation dawned.

'You have read the book before, haven't you.' Draco didn't reply, just smirked wider. 'You absolute, complete, utter…'

Words failed her.

'I'm an absolute, complete utter? He raised an eyebrow, delighting in annoying his partner. 'You have a wonderful way with words.'

She glared. Draco smirked at her, and crossed his arms. Suddenly he winced. 'Damned quill.' he said, examining his hand. He had somehow managed to dig a long, deep scratch in his flesh.

'That looks painful.' Hermione said, not unkindly but not in a particularly caring way either. A trickle of blood ran down his wrist, to disappear beneath his sleeve. Draco swore beneath his breath.

'I think I have a handkerchief in here somewhere…' she said, rifling through her schoolbag. 'Here.' She handed him a simple, white square of fabric.

'Thank you.' he said, dabbing at the blood. He may be the most annoying, egotistic, self-centred, cruel entity in the entire known universe, but he knew his pleases and thank-yous. Hermione watched as he dabbed at the cut, which did relatively nothing to stop the thin trickle of crimson.

'Oh, for goodness' sake!' she exclaimed, reaching over to pull the handkerchief out of his hand. 'Tie it round the cut, don't just…'

But she stopped, because he had jerked away from her as if afraid of being touched. Hermione was confused. Was Draco afraid? Angry? Was it because she was Muggleborn? A spark of suspicious dislike flared where once there had been a bonfire.

Clumsily, he attempted to wrap the cut one handed, keeping a wary eye on her. When he started trying to tie the knot, Hermione lost her patience.

'Come here. Let me tie it.'

He tried to pull his hand away again, but she managed to catch his fingers. This time, she was the one who jerked away from him.

'You're freezing!' she exclaimed, wide-eyed with surprise.

'I had noticed.' he snapped back. There was a cold anger burning in his eyes that would have rooted her to the spot with fear had she not been too confused to notice.

He had felt so cold… it was like ice… but how could he be so cold and not dead?

'It's a curse.' he snapped grudgingly, glaring at her. 'A Dark curse. Known as the Glacios curse.'

She looked puzzled. 'And?'

'And what?' He slumped slightly in his seat, an arm defensively across his chest, one hand holding the handkerchief in place. His eyes glittered with rage as he glared at her murderously. Hermione felt extremely uncomfortable, but her curiosity won out.

'Well… what exactly does it do? Who cast it on you? Can it be cured?' She asked the questions very rapidly, as if afraid that if she paused Draco would shout at her.

He answered her shortly and snappishly. 'The first question, it makes the sufferer feel constantly freezing. I'm not entirely sure quite how. And it stops them feeling any external heat source. The second question, my father. The third question, probably but I don't know how.'

'Your father cast it on you?' Hermione was shocked. She knew that Draco's father was not the nicest of people, as a probable Death Eater. But she had never thought he might use Dark curses on his own son.

Draco nodded shortly, not meeting her eyes. Now, although he looked just as angry, there was a touch of something else behind his eyes. Something almost painful.

'But why?'

'I annoyed him.'

Hermione decided not to push him any further on that point. There were a lot of questions she wanted to ask, but she realised that Draco probably didn't want to tell her. There was an uncomfortable silence. Draco glared at Hermione, then abruptly stood and stormed out of the room like an angry thundercloud.

Hermione bit her lip, gazing after him with a thoughtful yet worried expression. Well, it at least explained a lot about Draco. No wonder he was so horrible, with such a cruel father!

A muffled voice from behind her broke her out of her thoughts, and she turned to see Harry and Ron's heads floating in mid air by the bookcase. She jumped, before realising they were in the Invisibility Cloak. Both their faces looked rather surprised.

'Well, I wasn't expecting something like that.' said Harry.

'You were spying on me?' asked Hermione incredulously.

They looked uncomfortable. 'Well we were worried.' said Ron's head. 'With it being Malfoy and all.'

'We wanted to make sure he didn't hurt you again.' added Harry.

Hermione shook her head. 'I'm not sure whether to be mad at you or to think it's sweet.'

The two boys took off the cloak and sat down at the table, neither of them, Hermione noticed, taking the seat recently vacated by Draco. There was an awkward silence.

'Sorry for spying on you.' said Harry.

'It's alright.' Hermione smiled at them. 'I know you were only trying to help and stuff… but you could have told me, and…'

'Hermione, you'd never have allowed us to spy on you.' Ron pointed out.

She smiled weakly. 'I suppose I'd better finish this translation.'

'It's supposed to be a group thing isn't it? Shouldn't Malfoy help you?'

'No, it's ok. It's probably better to wait till he's not quite as angry. And there's only a bit left.'

The three friends sat around the dark-wooded table, talking quietly. A rather subdued air hung over the trio.

~*~

The days wore on, forming week after week after week. Time flew by, through pages of the Laekalia, through lessons and homework and weekends spent with friends, until the middle of March.

Hermione and Draco had not fought since she had found out about the Glacios curse. True, they bickered almost continuously, but it was more friendly argument than anything else. He called her Mudblood less and less, and they had somehow developed a first-name basis. She had learnt to tolerate him, and he seemed to be treating her with more respect and civility.

They were around the three-quarter point of the book by now. Hermione was, strangely, not looking forward to finishing it. Somehow over the past few weeks, in spite of the fact that he was an annoying, egotistical, sadistical, cold-hearted, cruel, evil git, she had sort of grown to like Draco. Not that she would ever admit it. Yes, they squabbled continuously, but it was all in fun, and yes, he was still sometimes mean about her being Muggleborn, but somehow she could tell he didn't mean it anymore. Whenever she tried to figure out their strange half-friendship, it made her head ache. But whenever she didn't think about it, it made perfect sense.

Hermione hadn't forgotten about the Glacios curse over the course of the weeks. Whenever she had time she had gone, in typical Hermione fashion, to the library to search for a cure. After all, Draco had said there might be one. To her frustration, it proved to be quite a rare curse, only listed in a few books. So one late Thursday night saw her tiptoeing to the library; hopeful that this time would prove more fruitful than the other times she had looked.

Half an hour of fruitless searching among the Defence Against The Dark Arts section yielded no answers. She had looked through 'A Glossary of Dark Curses', 'Dark Curses and How to Combat them', and 'Dark Curses: A Listing.' She had checked 'A Thousand and One Curses', 'Curses the Ministry Keep Secret' and what many others too innumerable to remember. She now only had a few minutes till the library closed, and was getting desperate. Maybe the answer would only be in the Restricted Section? But how to get a pass?

She was skimming the index of a thick book called 'Dark Curses: A Guide', muttering the names of curses as she got to them. 'Gestito… Gibbus…. Glacios…'

Her voice trailed off. There it was! 'Glacios, page 212.' She carefully turned the pages. The book was very old and thick.

'The Glacios curse.' she read in almost reverent tones. 'Invented in 1215 by the feared Dark witch, Lady Maesta…'

She was cut off by Madam Pince, rounding the corner of a bookcase. 'The library should have closed five minutes ago.' She pointed out.

'But this is really important…'

'I'm sorry, but the library is closing.'

'Well can I take this one out?'

The librarian glared at her. 'You're already two books over the limit. The book will still be here in the morning.'

She had spent so long looking, just to be stopped at the last moment! Now she would have to wait until the library opened tomorrow. Madam Pince reached over, picked up the book and shut it, then filed it neatly away amongst its fellows. Hermione gave the book, gold writing glimmering with promise on its spine, a last longing look, before turning to leave.

~*~

A blur of crimson and gold, and a sudden feeling of dread. Then the images came together, forming themselves into the slightly fuzzed image of a long room. The walls of the room were lined with soft-looking beds, covered with red and gold fabric, like sunshine on blood. In the second bed from the door Hermione slept peacefully, a small smile on her face.  All seemed peaceful, all seemed calm, but there was something in the air that spoke of danger.

And then. The door at one end of the room opened, slowly, slowly, without so much as a creak, and through it came two black-cloaked figures, their faces and identities hidden by the dark material. They crept through the room like sinister mice, and stopped by Hermione. One of them drew out a wand, and whispered a spell. The sleeping form of Hermione rose a few inches off the bed, and then, silently as death, the two men crept out, the oblivious girl floating ghostlike in front of them.

They pulled the door to gently, and softly descended the stairs into the main common room, full of comfortable red and gold sofas. The men approached the fire, and one pulled out of his pocket a small paper bag. Throwing a handful of powder into the flames, which turned viridian green to clash horribly with the room, the first man stepped into the flames with a muttered word. The second followed, still floating the unconscious girl in front of him.

A flash of green, and the scene changed abruptly to a darkly lit stony room, cold and harsh. The journey had shaken Hermione into consciousness, and she sat on the floor, looking around her with frightened and wild eyes. She gabbled something inaudible, heard as if through water, and one of the men replied in a voice that sounded cold in spite of being impossible to hear. She scrambled to her feet, tried to run, but made it barely a step before a spell stopped her, freezing her limbs so she fell to the floor. But her eyes still moved, and the utter fear and horror in them was painful to witness.

The fabric of the dream twisted again, and now Hermione was in a cell. A hooded Death Eater stood before her, holding a strange silver orb in one hand. He pointed a wand at her, shouted something. Hermione collapsed screaming, her terrified voice stabbing the heart like a knife, and the man laughed coldly, his hood falling off to reveal silver-blond hair…

The torture session faded, and the man was seen to drop the orb into a table drawer close to the cell, lock it with a small silver key, and walk upstairs.

The scene shifted again. Now the distinctive face of Lucius Malfoy was visible, curving into a cruel parody of a smile. He spoke, and this time his speech was perfectly audible.

'The girl has been captured successfully, my Lord. She is locked in the dungeons.'

And a second cold voice, it's owner unseen, replied. 'Good.' It paused a moment, and then continued in a quieter voice, as if speaking to itself. ' And now the pieces of the plan come together at last.' The voice laughed, a high cold laugh

and in Hogwarts castle, two boys were startled awake.

~*~

            A/N: The plot thickens! What's going on? Is Hermione alright? What's that strange silver orb? Can the Glacios curse be cured? How? Which two boys awoke from the dream and why? (more chocolate to whoever answers that one!)

            Please review!