Torture and misery failed to come anywhere near the description of how Draco was feeling as he cried to himself on the couch; Nagini's poison was circulating through his fragile system and his ribs creaked every time he breathed. His grey eyes were completely bloodshot and a far deeper colour than they had ever been in the past; his hair was askew across his face and there was a strong ringing in his ears, undoubtedly from his 'passing out' in his 'dream'. Or so he thought. Panic was swarming through the youth's body as he struggled to gain relief from his lacerations, and he knew that he couldn't get help from anyone in the area, including Hermione. If he told her what had happened in his dream, there was no chance that she'd seek his company again; it was true he didn't know that there was something wrong in the parchment when he had given it to her, and now that she believed it to be true, he had been told that the warlock was an ancestor of some of Voldemort's loyal followers. He was afraid to go asleep in fear of finding his father and Voldemort again, but he was afraid to stay awake from the pain he was in. He heard the distant sound of bells ringing, and he felt calm as the noise comforted his weary soul. The pain seemed to disappear so he relaxed against the couch once more now that his fear had disintegrated, and he felt like he was in nirvana from his total sense of bliss. He closed his unusually coloured eyes before allowing his mind to drift away from the haunting dream that had caused so much damage to him both physically and emotionally, and an idea suddenly announced itself in his calm thoughts: 'Tell Hermione what to do'. He was wrecked, but he decided to get up to visit Hermione nevertheless; when was she likely to sleep in his bed again? He surreptitiously opened the door to his room and he stealthily crept towards his four-poster bed due to his unwilling attitude of waking up the other members of Slytherin in his desires to see the girl he loved. She was sleeping soundly in his clothes, and it had a strange effect that exchanged his desire to tell her about the prophecy to one of allowing her to rest. He reluctantly turned to leave the room, and when he had returned to his makeshift bed on the leather couch, he heard someone coming from the opposite direction. He stopped in his tracks and turned to face Pansy Parkinson emerging from the girl's dormitories, and before he could even acknowledge who it was properly, she walked over to him and flirtatiously asked if the covers on the couch was an invitation for her. He gave her a look of sheer disgust and performed an entirely unnatural action for his character; he swooped down on her and pressed her against the wall closest to them before hissing out:
"I told you after I took you to the Yule Ball two years ago that I can't stand you as a girlfriend, so why would I want anything to do with you now? You're about as sexually attractive as Crabbe is"
The words that poured out of his mouth undoubtedly stunned her, and his grip tightened on her shoulders as his eyes glowed an eerie electric blue. He blinked once and she found herself back in her bed without moving, and her face and shoulders bore scratch marks that she had never received from him. She was so terrified by what her ex-boyfriend had done to her—and called her—that had she wanted to, she couldn't restrain herself from continuing to cry uncontrollably into her sheets as the blood began to trickle out of her fresh wounds. Draco allowed himself a smile as he repositioned himself on the couch and when he closed his eyes, he sadistically relived the adrenaline he had received in using a new surge of power within his system. The outlandish power had sealed up the wounds that Voldemort and Nagini had caused, and even though it was a new addition to him he was becoming under the impression that there was no downside to this added essence in his very soul. His swiftness and dexterity made him a powerful and dangerous adversary, but a more important feature was his ability of self-healing; it meant that he possessed every opportunity of being invincible.
*~*~*~**~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
It took Hermione a few moments to realise where she was when she didn't initially recognise her surroundings, and she was aware of a presence in her proximity. She felt his hand run along her face and she breathed out 'Good morning' after he kissed her lightly on her lips. It was still light and by the sounds that his roommates were emitting, they were the only two awake there. She instinctively drew the covers close to her body as he kissed her more passionately, and although she couldn't quite place it, there was definitely something different in his technique; it seemed to have a fiery kick in it that wasn't there before. She felt his hands beginning to travel over her body and she broke away sharply from their kiss after he touched her somewhere that nobody else had ever touched before. He removed his hand and he whispered a sincere apology for acting like that, and she could tell by his expression that he hadn't thought it would annoy her at the time, but it was that thought that confused her the most; what he had done hadn't annoyed her, and in a strange way she had liked it, but she still felt the need to tell him to behave himself. Perhaps it was her organised lifestyle that wanted him to leave actions like that until they were entirely alone, or maybe it was refraining herself from experiencing enjoyment in new sources in case she developed too much of a rebellious attitude. He reminded her that she needed to get back to Gryffindor Tower before anybody realised she was missing, and he left the room to allow her to get changed back into her clothes. They knew it was going to be riskier on the return journey than it had been the night before as Filch had been given orders to guard the Fat Lady's portrait heavily, and neither of them had any idea if the reinforcement was still in action. Luckily, by the time they'd got there, the area was as it normally should be without anyone else in the vicinity. He leant down to kiss her goodbye but he ceased his action when they heard the portrait swing open to reveal Neville Longbottom clambering out of the opening. He stopped as he stepped out of the hole and fell to the ground, causing Draco to attempt to disguise a snort of delight at Neville's expense. This enraged Neville and he stood up with his fists clenched, and he surprised them by assertively declaring that he was willing to fight him if he didn't leave Hermione alone. Draco stood before the boy and coolly whispered that he wasn't harming Hermione in the slightest and that he was merely escorting her to the Great Hall for breakfast. He chose to stand at an angle where only Neville could see his face before allowing his eyes to glow an electric blue momentarily, causing the round boy to retreat for the safety of the Tower once more. Draco blinked to make his eyes return to normal and he walked with Hermione towards the Great Hall since that was where they were supposedly going now anyway, and in lieu of the fact they knew they were alone, he slid his arm around her without a hint of worry or embarrassment as they continued to walk. Or at least, they thought they were unseen…
They discovered that they were nearly the only occupants of the Great Hall when they arrived there, save for a few eager first years and the residential ghosts that were diving and swooping around the room; it was as if they were looking for something that only their spectral eyes could see. It was hard for the new couple to separate to sit at different tables, but they sat in such a manner that they could see each other without their companionship being obvious to the student body. The mood automatically changed to a more sombre one for Draco when Harry and Ron entered the room with Neville in tow, and hushed words were exchanged between the sixth year Gryffindors, and when combined with more than a few venomous glares aimed at Draco, he thought it would be wise to finish the rest of his breakfast and leave the Hall. He wasn't given that option though; what the ghosts had been searching for suddenly erupted through the tray in the centre of the Gryffindor table, which covered the first years in its vicinity in toast, and both Hermione and Draco's hearts plummeted to the pits of their stomachs when they saw what it was. Peeve's head was barely visible behind one of the floating candles, and he was screeching at the top of his malevolent voice, and he seemed more high-spirited than usual in every sense of the term. He swooped down at Hermione and lifted her up onto the table, and she suddenly became aware of how much the room had filled since she had entered it. She thought to be suspended inches from the solid ground by a pair of arms that had been dead for countless years to be a sheer horrible feeling. Peeves suddenly dropped her and screeched out next to her ear:
"Just wondered what you looked like when you weren't acting invisible on top of another student, ickle girlie. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!"
She felt at least one of her bones crack underneath her weight as she landed gracelessly on the cold ground, and whilst a crowd gathered around her, the poltergeist seized this distraction to make his exit without losing his exciting new prize, and he pulled the Cloak over himself again whilst speeding down the corridor. She felt Draco gently supporting her and he quietly asked her if she was feeling alright in case her ears were ringing from the fall, but she was dismissed before she could reply to his considerate comment by Harry growling in a dangerous tone:
"You took my Cloak, am I right in saying that?"
Hermione nodded mutely, but she wasn't given a sufficient time to answer him since when she started to say something, Harry cut her off again:
"My father left me that Cloak, and am I to understand that you took it without my permission to visit HIM and do unmentionable things to him, BEFORE letting a GHOST STEAL IT?"
"I-I didn't do anything wrong with…"
"You may be intelligent Hermione,
but you're stupid if you feel a priceless heirloom is worth nothing compared to
a quick feel-up with Malfoy, if that's where you left it at"
His words echoed in her head as Draco carried her out of the hall towards the hospital wing, and neither of them said anything, until they saw Pansy Parkinson stopping at the opposite end of a corridor upon seeing them from their position at the top of a flight of stairs. She pointed at Draco and she hysterically screamed that he'd struck out at another person again before running away in the direction she had come from in sheer terror; Draco quickly shrugged it off by explaining about the conspiracy that his House had about him, and that was why they were ignoring him. He hoped that his cover story worked, and after she had seen the curse infect his nose when he had been giving her clothes, Hermione didn't have any reason to question his answer, and as an added security, Pansy was too far away for Hermione to have seen her cuts. When they got to the waiting room, Draco set her down on a chair that was there before embracing her tightly to share his body heat—the feel of Peeves' skin against her own made her feel like it was encased in ice. He found that the extreme cold against his body was displeasing, but he held her against him regardless of this fact; it was more important to regulate her temperature than a few minutes of discomfort. He kissed her lightly and she found relief in this show of affection, even though her thoughts were still occupied with Harry's harsh remark towards her. Draco heard someone approaching with his new sense of acute hearing, and he pulled his lips away from hers before Madame Pomfrey turned the corner. He calmly explained the situation to the nurse, and she rolled her eyes when she heard that Peeves had caused another accident for her to fix that morning. She resignedly explicated that it wasn't like him to have attacked students to the extent of her having twelve patients before eleven o' clock, and she added that she wanted to know what his new trick or assistant was. The pair of guilt-ridden teenagers remained in total silence after she said this, and upon healing over completely, Hermione walked outside the castle with Draco so they could talk without having abuse hurled at them by members from either House, even if it meant that they'd be cold. They sat on the cold steps and he held her against his body to keep her from getting an infection due to being exposed to the cold.
"Are you alright now, Hermione?"
"No. What Harry said earlier really
upset me, and I feel so stupid to have let the Cloak get stolen"
"It wasn't your fault Peeves
snatched it for his own; it's my fault you were out of bed in the first place.
If you weren't meeting me, you wouldn't have required it in the first place"
"I chose to meet you, therefore it's my fault it was stolen. I should have known it would happen, after all, I didn't even have his permission to use it in the first place. He thinks that we went further than we did, which means he's not going to believe me when I tell him we didn't. How the heck are we meant to retrieve it?"
"It's only going to be a short time before someone gets it back; if it isn't the Bloody Baron, it'll be Dumbledore. Do you really expect people to let him keep something that can make his malevolent attacks even more malicious?"
"Um…no"
"Exactly. Don't worry about it. What's the worst that could happen to us?"
"Expulsion"
"Do you really think they'll allow the smartest witch to be expelled over a few minor broken rules? The Ministry would have something to say about that!"
"I hardly think I'd be excused for my brainpower"
"It's a better option that using your body to save yourself"
"True. Draco, I really need to ask you something"
"Yes?"
"I really like you, a lot, but I
need to ask you about what you gave me"
"The page?"
"Yes. It's puzzled me why you
showed me it"
"I care deeply for you too Hermione, and I was totally serious when I said I thought it would interest you"
"Is it true?"
"I didn't forge it, if that's what you were thinking"
"It just seems so…coincidental, that's all"
"I wouldn't do anything like that to confuse you. Have you got it with you? We should have looked over it together last night when we had some privacy"
"Yes I have it, do you want to look at it again? I have a few questions to ask about it"
"Yes please, if you don't mind. I need to…look over…something on it"
Extracted from the journal of Warlock Gornby de Ferrière in Marseilles, 1685
The planets and stars have aligned themselves and opened a portal to a time far beyond our own, and if this is what it is to be, I am certain that there is no equal of her knowledge in our time. A mere Muggle-born and student, this girl was the sole defeater of the most powerful evil at that time, and a threat of his magnitude has never been equalled, including his inspirer. It is true that her battle-experience was limited, I could see the panic in her eyes as she raised her wand, and like the novice she was she rushed to her opponent's side after mortally injuring him. The darkness that had seized the castle lifted, and the tragedies or the battle disappeared, unquestionably back to their origins. This young Muggle-born was about to be presented with an Order Of Merlin, First Class before the celestial bodies wrenched me back to Marseilles. Although my decision to glimpse the future was assisted by the longing to know the outcome of Fenwick the Formidable present Goblin Rebellion, I have now reached the conclusion that pertinent procedures must be carried out for this threat of the juncture that will be at large. No matter what, I must make sure that my family and future generations will assure its allegiance before the battle begin, so we can show our loyalty to the one that can be so great.
Many other records have been found of this prophecy, yet none that bear the Divination gift have managed to reveal the heroine's identity. Regardless of this irksome fact, we have uncovered some facts over the years: It will start and end in Hogwarts Castle, School Of Witchcraft And Wizardry; the girl is Muggle-born and will defeat an evil greater than what has been known beforehand; It will take place one hundred and forty-seven years after Brixen's defeat over Gorgenwort, the fearsome giant that once ruled the centre of Europe from a tiny cavern in a mineshaft, and there will be no equal to come from either side of the great battle that is to be.
"Is there anything you want to ask me about it?"
"When did the battle take place?"
"I believe one hundred and forty-seven years ago"
"And the greatest evil?"
"Don't you know anyone whom everyone fears?"
"I'm going to kill VOLDEMORT???"
"Apparently, or so I believe. It seems you're set for fame that Potter only half-grasped when he was blasted as a kid"
"I…can't"
"Who else can it be? A Muggle-born girl whose intelligence that hasn't been matched, in Hogwarts? Who is a novice at fighting? Do you know anyone else who has ever gotten two hundred and thirty-five per cent when they broke their quill in the middle of it and needed to wait fifteen minutes for an Anti-Cheating Spell replacement?"
"No, but it still might perhaps mean…"
"THERE YOU TWO ARE. Accio parchment"
They turned around to see Potions Master Severus Snape standing behind them with a twisted smile showing that he was planning something that wasn't beneficial to them, especially when he had finished reading the parchment.
"Will you both follow me to the library, where you can tell Madame Pince what damage you have inflicted on one of her rarest, oldest and most valuable books?"
There was no disguising the detestation in the older man's voice when he spoke to Draco, and the youth stood up from the steps to defiantly stare Snape in his face, and Draco easily allowed his eyes to resume glowing the electric blue hue once more in his moment of annoyance…