**Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark breach is intended.**
***Yay, super beta'd version! Brought to you by Emilia :)***
The Greatest of Sacrifices
The Halloween Raid
Written By Kate PotterSunday, July 28, 2002, 1:31 a.m.
For the next two weeks, Hermione had met Draco in secret almost every night. Also, every night that she went out, Ron and/or Harry were always waiting for her in the common room. Harry constantly looked expressionless and only half-smiled when he saw her as if she were really just the last thing on his mind. On the other hand, Ron was always angry. Hermione always knew Ron had a temper, but now he was just being ridiculous. Hermione could only hope that her story about being in the library studying up for a big test in Arithmancy every night had convinced the both of them. Ginny, however, was less helpful than Hermione wished. Whenever she announced that she was "going to the library" (and even at times she didn't), Ginny would start giggling like mad.
All in all, however, Hermione was extremely happy. Ron and Harry were only minor distractions in her life now. Draco was totally different than she had ever thought. She had always thought that Draco was a sneering, cold-hearted person. But now that she was meeting him every night, she learned that he was quite calm and easy-going (yet still very emotionless).
She had also taken an unexpected liking to Slytherins in general. Even though she had only met a few, she found out that they weren't as bad as the other three houses thought. In fact, they were almost the exact opposite of what most seemed to think. Although Draco and Hermione wanted to keep it a secret from the school that they liked each other, Draco thought it was only fair that he could tell someone if Hermione could tell Ginny. Draco had decided to tell Goyle, but since he and Crabbe were always together, he knew as well. As for them, they were nothing like Hermione, or anyone who wasn't a Slytherin for that matter, had thought. They weren't stupid at all. In truth, they were very smart and received marks just as high as Harry or Ron. When she thought about it, she really didn't have a reason in the first place to think they were dumb…just because they were quiet it didn't mean anything.
It was the night before Halloween when Hermione and Ginny decided to (seriously) go to the library. Hermione was pretty sure that everyone would be too excited about the upcoming holiday to be looking for books, too, so she took the opportunity to study in peace and quiet. Nevertheless, when they got there, there were three people sitting at a table near the back of the room talking rather loudly. Surprising Hermione didn't care in the least. In fact, she was happy, for the three sitting at the table were none other than Draco, Greg and Vince. (Hermione was now on first-name terms with the both of them).
Hermione walked up to the table, Ginny following somewhat awkwardly. When she got close enough for Vince to notice, however, he shook his head and nodded towards Hermione and Ginny to the other two. Draco turned his head quickly to look at the two of them, slightly surprised.
"Hermione!" He started, "I didn't see you. What are you doing here?"
Hermione nonchalantly glanced at the table they were at and noticed it was covered in half-filled parchments and books both stacked in piles and opened.
"The same thing it looks like you're doing;" Hermione replied. "Taking advantage of the rest of the school acting drunk off of high-spirits."
"Heh, yeah." Draco agreed. "Um, want to join us then?"
Vince and Greg cleared and edge of the table and took some books off of two chairs and smiled invitingly at Hermione. Ginny, though, was shooting her reluctant looks, trying to tell her without words that she didn't want to.
"Sure!" she replied cheerfully, sitting down in the chair closest to Draco. Ginny slowly sat down next to her, looking uncomfortable, despite the fact that Vince and Greg had smiled at her when she sat down.
It was already pretty late when Hermione and Ginny had walked into the library, so it was no surprise that Ginny had only stayed for about a half hour before getting up to go to bed. Hermione almost laughed at Ginny's face when she had said goodnight and Draco, Vince and Greg all said goodnight back. It was a mixture of shock and gratitude, which, when you think about it, is actually a strange face. Without another word, she left Hermione with the three of them. It didn't bother Hermione in the least and she was even happier, though she didn't say so, when Vince and Greg got up to leave too, taking most of the books and parchments on the table with them.
Hermione was the first to say anything after they left since Draco looked like he could sit there and not say anything for quite a while.
"What are you thinking about?" She asked, putting her elbows up on the table and propping her head up by her hands.
No answer. Draco just stared down at a parchment in front of his face, though not actually looking at the parchment itself.
Hermione rolled her eyes and half-smiled.
"Draco," she said a bit louder. Still no answer. "Draco!"
He suddenly popped out of his daze and looked at her.
"What?" he asked, as if nothing happened.
Hermione couldn't help but giggle quietly. He looked so cute when he was confused.
"Well," she thought to herself, "he's always cute, but he's more cute than usual."
"I was just wondering what you were thinking about," she explained, still smiling a bit. "Obviously it isn't something little."
"Oh," he said quietly, closing his eyes, putting his fingers to his temples and rubbing his head, "it's nothing really. Just thinking about this bloody report I have to write for Potions." He waved his hand casually at the parchment.
Hermione knew that really wasn't what he was thinking about, but she didn't press it any further. She didn't want to anger or annoy him in any way.
Draco let out a long sigh before looking back up to Hermione lazily. Hermione noticed a strange emotion flash in his eyes as he stared at her, but it left his eyes exactly how it had come; in a flash. Before she could figure what it was, he spoke.
"I suppose it is pretty late, 'Mione." He said finally, looking at something behind her.
Hermione turned and saw a large clock on the wall that read 11:39.
"Yeah," She whispered in agreement, turning back to look at him. "We should probably sleep."
She and Draco just looked at one another for a while before packing away the rest of the books and parchment that lay scattered across the table. They both got up to leave and Hermione walked up next to him. Before she really noticed what she was doing, she held his hand. He didn't make any attempt to pull his away, but he held hers loosely. Nevertheless, Hermione felt a bit warmer.
Draco walked with her until they reached the hallway where they would have to go their separate ways.
Hermione turned to face him and smiled lightly.
"Goodnight," her voice barely a whisper.
Draco face remained impassive, but his hand reached up and tucked a loose strand of her hair behind her ear while the other slipped around her waist, pulling her closer.
They stared at each other for a minute, not saying anything. For Hermione, it was torture. She just wanted to grab his face and kiss him, but that would be a very un-Hermione thing to do. Though at the moment, she wasn't thinking about what she should or shouldn't do and the only thing she could think of was kissing him.
Hermione wrapped her arms behind Draco's neck and pulled herself up a bit to place her lips on his. At first it felt as if he wasn't expecting it, but he soon responded and kissed her back. Hermione couldn't even tell that the hallway was freezing cold. At that moment, she really didn't care. Whenever she kissed him, a rush of emotions filled her and her whole body felt tingly and warm.
All too soon for Hermione, Draco pulled back.
"Goodnight," he whispered so quietly Hermione was sure that if they weren't as close as they were, she wouldn't have heard him.
She dropped her arms from his shoulders and he let go of her waist. Hermione was the first to start walking away, but every couple of seconds she would turn her head to look back at him, still in the middle of the hall, watching her go.
Just as usual, Hermione saw the dark figures of Harry and Ron in the common room. There were only a few embers left in the large fireplace and they sent an eerie glow throughout the room. Hermione started sulking towards the stairs, getting ready for Ron to bombard her with questions about where she was. She was too busy thinking up excuses as to where she had went to even notice that she had actually made it to the bottom of the stairs across the room. She looked back at the two boys. She could barely see them, but they were there.
"Hey." She said quietly enough for them to be able to hear her. But instead of any comprehendible response, she heard Ron mumble something, and Harry move his head. They were asleep.
Hermione could have laughed out if she weren't afraid of them waking up.
Hermione put her pajamas on and fell into her bed in a dramatically better mood than she would have usually been when getting back to her dorm.
Ginny was already asleep when she got there, so she would have to wait until tomorrow to tell her what had happened. (A/N: One/some of you have asked me why Ginny is in the same dorm as Hermione even though they are in different years. Let's just say that Ginny feels like it and doesn't like the other sixth year girls and she's a friend with Hermione because I really don't feel like finding the points and changing them. All right? All right! Back to the story!) She wanted to think about her kiss with Draco all night, but almost right after her head hit her pillow, she fell into a sound, dreamless sleep.
Hermione woke up late the next morning. She was surprised that the bright sunlight coming through a crack in the curtain around her bed and the singing birds weren't the ones to wake her up. It was Lavender Brown's excited jabbering that did the trick.
"You all are so lazy!" she exclaimed cheerfully.
Hermione could hear the scraping of metal against metal as Ginny's curtain was pulled open.
Hermione groaned to herself and grabbed the edge of the cloth around her own bed. She then heard Lavender walk up beside the bed.
"It's Halloween! Get up!"
Lavender, Hermione could only imagine, must have tried to swing open the curtain in a rather graceful, twirly way, because when she pulled, Hermione squeezed her hand even tighter around the cloth and she heard Lavender fall onto the floor.
"Hey!" she cried angrily from the floor. "What was that for?"
The only response Lavender got was Hermione and Ginny laughing hysterically at her.
Hermione, however, did manage to get up and dressed, and told Ginny all about the past night once the irascible Lavender had left the room. To Hermione's shock, Ginny didn't burst out in giggles, but instead looked envious.
"How come you couldn't have fallen in love with my brother?" She asked moping. "Then I wouldn't have a reason to be so jealous."
"I'm not in love with Draco, Ginny." Hermione said, pulling on her sweater, but she wasn't sure if she believed her own words.
At about seven o'clock that night, Hermione walked with a few other Gryffindors down to the Great Hall for the Halloween feast. Everyone was in high-spirits and Hermione couldn't help but laugh along with most everyone else when she saw that half of the Gryffindor boys had charmed their hair bright orange.
Hermione sat down between Ron and Seamus (both of whom had orange hair) and talked amongst the other students, waiting for Dumbledore to start his pre-feast speech. She remembered sadly that this would be the last Halloween she would spend with everyone. Sure, she wasn't friends with everyone in her house, she wasn't even friends with everyone in her year, but she was definitely going to miss the friendly smiles and familiar faces of Gryffindor. Hermione forced the sad thoughts out of her mind when Dumbledore finally spoke up.
"Dig in!" It was only two words, but with a wave of his hands, the tables filled up with food and drinks.
Hermione was having a great time, talking and still laughing about how Ron's hair barely even changed by turning it bright orange. Only ten minutes had gone by when suddenly a large boom and crashing sound filled the school. Everyone was quiet and most of the teachers stood up and stared at the door that lead to the Entrance Hall. Dumbledore himself had started walking towards the door when suddenly there was another loud crash and several students had to scurry away from being flattened from the large doors falling off their hinges. In the doorway stood five men in dark cloaks, two of which had their wands pointed to where the doors used to stand. They were Death Eaters.
Some students stood up and some students were too scared to move. No one said a word for a few seconds, but Hermione heard the man in the middle say with a raspy voice, "Find her. Go."
Someone sitting in Hagrid's hut would've thought there was some sort of explosion coming from the Great Hall. Everyone got to there feet and was scrambling around. There were only two other doors leading out of the hall, and since they were small, there were two large pileups. Gryffindors and Hufflepuffs went to the door to the left while Slytherin and Ravenclaw went to the right. Hermione turned to look and she saw that the five men had now turned to a dozen and she was sure there were probably a few more by the front doors.
Suddenly someone grabbed her arm. She screamed out loud, but since most everyone was already, no one noticed. She thought she had been caught by one of the men, but when she turned, she saw it was Draco, emotionless, but slightly paler than usual.
"Come with me."
Draco pulled her over to the other side of the hall. Hermione saw that most of the men were over by the side where the Gryffindors and Hufflepuffs were while there were only a few over by where Draco was leading her.
Once they managed to get through the door, Draco rushed up a stairwell, still pulling Hermione behind her. She recognized the other students around her as Slytherins, but they were too focused on running to notice she was there.
"Draco…" She managed to gasp out. "Where…?"
"They won't look for you here…"
Draco pulled Hermione through a stone opening in the wall where many Slytherins were already doing. She figured it was their common room, but it wasn't really the right time to be taking in the sights.
Suddenly Draco stopped running and looked around until his eyes landed on a small closet.
"Come on." He started running again, not waiting for her to answer.
"Draco," Hermione breathed, "What's going on?"
"They're looking for mud…non-pure bloods," he answered quickly, reaching the closet. He opened the door and looked around before turning back to Hermione.
"Stay in here. Don't move. Don't make a sound."
Hermione nodded quickly but couldn't keep the frightened look off her face. She got into the closet and hit behind some boxes to the side. She could hear everyone still running around in terror and screaming. She wondered what Draco was doing at the moment and couldn't help but be scared for him. She knew that his father was a Death Eater, Harry had told her the summer after their fourth year, but what about Draco?
Suddenly there was a far-off scream and another loud crash. There was a different voice ordering people around now. It was deeper and more evil sounding.
"Search everywhere.
She's here somewhere."
Hermione felt multiple pangs of
fear and couldn't help but start to cry.
She started to think of her parents and the rest of her family. People's faces flashed through her mind,
including Draco's.
Unexpectedly the closet door burst open and the boxes that had been hiding her were shoved aside.
The man under the cloak laughed evilly before raising his wand at her.
"Got you." He said in a deep hiss. Then, before Hermione could move...
"Stupefy!"
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Okay, that's it. I know it's a cliffie, but that's probably how most of my chapters will be like...except for the end, of course. I'm not too proud of the amount of reviews I got, but, nevertheless, I thank:
Emilia: Thanks a lot! Really, thanks...you're one of the few people that whenever I tell myself to just stop writing, you tug annoyingly at the back of my mind until I can't take it anymore and I continue on...trust me, that's a compliment...
IlUvDrAcOmAlFoY: I know what you mean about the second book...don't get me wrong though, I love the whole series, but the second wasn't my favorite.
Special thanks go to Emilia, Bren, and Gabby for reading/fixing any flaws in text/plot/dialogue.
Draco Rocks!
-Kate P.
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